


And in this Heart

by slightly_ajar



Series: Sighs of Fire [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Contains one or two swear words if you're concerned about that kind of thing, Daemons, Found Family, Friendship, Gaslighting, I might add more tags if I think of any, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Kidnapping, Team as Family, spy siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24387253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: “I think you should all sit down.” Matty said, her voice soft and controlled.Nothing good ever came from those words.  What followed was always something terrible, something that knocked the breath from you when you learned about it.  As Mac sank in to the seat behind him he felt his nerves tingle with the tension that buzzed through the room like static electricity.Mac has to find Riley after she vanishes from right outside her door.  Worried, guilty and with no clues to follow will Mac and the Phoenix team find her?
Series: Sighs of Fire [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760947
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	1. If you hear something late at night, some kind of trouble some kind of fight

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story ages ago, I can’t actually remember exactly when but it was about half way through season 3, so it's set after Jack left but before the Phoenix was broken up.
> 
> It is actually a sequel of a story I wrote in 2018 called [With Sighs of Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450010/chapters/38520149) – you don’t really have to read that one for this story to make sense, I reference it here and there but that’s it. 
> 
> This is a His Dark Materials AU so everyone has daemons, I like the idea of daemons so much that I wanted to have a go at writing my own.
> 
> The title of the story comes from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: "Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?"

It started with a girl on a swing. 

At least it did for Mac. The others might have different ideas on the subject, Mac had never asked, but if someone were to question him about the whole episode Mac would say it began when they saw the little girl sitting outside her suburban house on a swing. 

Mac, Riley and Desi had only gone to the house to interview the couple living there, there were no plans for arrests or confrontations. They had a lead that suggested there was more going on in the couple’s lives than met the eye – their bank account certainly said as much – and the team had gone to visit them to try and find out what they could about their connection to the drug money the Phoenix was following. 

The couple’s seven year old daughter, Megan, was sat on the swing in front of the house with her daemon in front of her in the form of an enormous mastiff. The dog’s head was huge with thick muscles bulging under it’s dark coat. The bulk of the daemon made it look like it would be at home chasing Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson through a mist filled stone circle in Dartmoor. 

“They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!” Mac’s crow daemon Vienne whispered to him as they grew closer to the girl. Mac frowned with concern as he noticed her slumped shoulders and the way her daemon’s head was resting in her lap and looking up at her with wide, sorrowful eyes. 

“Hi,” Desi said to the little girl, “We were wondering -” 

She was interrupted by a crash from inside the house. 

Megan’s deamon whined, low and mournful. 

“My mommy said that I should wait out here while her and my daddy talk, ” the little girl said in a fragile voice, curling further into herself. Her daemon snuffled and licked her clenched hands. 

Mac looked back at the house, at the perfect picture it’s manicured lawn and flawless paintwork presented, and understood what was happening behind the façade. 

Vienne fluttered on Mac’s shoulder, her black feathers ruffling in alarm. Beside him Riley and her daemon Sera stilled. Human and rat daemon were motionless, their jaws tight and their breathing fast and shallow. They glared at the house, staring past the wall to focus on what was happening inside. 

“Riles,” Mac said softly, asking ‘are you okay’ and suggesting caution. 

Riley didn’t respond. 

“Riles?” Mac repeated, a little louder to break through to the place she’d gone to deep inside herself. 

Riley lifted her chin minutely, her decision reached, and she burst into action. She sprinted to the house and stormed inside like a vengeful angel yelling, “Hey!” 

“You wait right here, okay sweetheart," Mac said to the little girl before he and Desi ran into the house behind Riley. 

After Mac pulled Riley away from the husband. After he secured the man whose knuckles were colouring as the broken capillaries under his skin turned to bruises. After Desi helped the wife up out of the corner she was cowering in, called Matty and arranged for Phoenix cars to take the family to an interrogation suite and a safe house. After silence finally fell in the rooms with the smashed ornaments - after everything was dealt with and Mac could act instead of react he went in search of Riley. 

He found her in Megan’s bedroom sitting in the walk in closet among pink dance shoes and stuffed animals. 

“Hey,” she said when she saw Mac approach, showing him a sad, self-deprecating smile. 

Mac sat down beside her wordlessly, copying her posture with his back against the wall, his knees raised and his feet flat on the floor. 

“Is everything okay?” Riley asked. 

“Yeah,” Mac told her, “Matty sorted everything out. It’s all taken care of.” 

Riley dropped her head into her hands and groaned. Her daemon climbed up her shirt and pushed himself against her neck, licking her hair. 

“God, I’m so sorry Mac! When I realised what was happening I...” Riley gave a harsh sigh and gripped handfuls of her hair in her fists, “I sort of lost it. Is Matty pissed?” 

“No more than usual.” 

Riley tipped her head back to look up, not at the white ceiling above her, but back to a dark and painful part of her past, “When I was a kid, with Elwood, you know?” Riley glanced at Mac, he nodded. He knew what she was referring to. To back when her father had been in her and her mother’s lives and the bad times then were much worse than the bad times after he left. “I’d hide in my closet just like this,” she flicked her hand to take in the small nook she and Mac were crowded inside, “and push pillows against the crack at the bottom of the door so I couldn’t hear what was happening. I wanted the yelling to stop but I never did anything about it. I never went to help my mom. I was too scared.” 

The afternoon sun warmed the bedroom, sunbeams shining in through the window and the crystals hanging from the curtain rail and painting swaying rainbows on the wall. 

“You were just a kid.” 

“I know that, but I wish that I’d gone to help my mom just once.” Riley bumped her head into the wall behind her with a dull thud, “that just one time I’d been brave enough to do something.” 

“It’s not about being brave or being too scared,” Mac said. “You were a child, that’s not something anyone expects a child to do. Do you think Megan was wrong for waiting outside?” 

“Of course not, she’s just a little girl.” 

“You were just a little girl.” 

“I know, but knowing something and feeling something aren’t the same.” 

Mac covered one of Riley’s hands with his own and squeezed her fingers as Vienne nuzzled against Sera, ruffling and smoothing his fur. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” 

“You don’t have to say sorry, it wasn’t your fault.” 

“No, but sometimes it’s good to hear an apology, you know?” Sitting up, Mac leaned forward to kiss Riley’s forehead. The gesture was both brotherly in it’s affection and parental in it’s intent to give comfort and care. It was an unusual move in their relationship which was usually based on a sibling like bond of friendship expressed through tight hugs and playful shoulder nudges but it felt right. Mac was glad that he’d followed the impulse to do it. 

Riley nudged her forehead against Mac’s. They were silent for a moment, Mac thinking about people’s expectations of themselves and how they could be so much more forgiving of others than they are of their own perceived failings. 

“Are you ready to go?” Mac asked. Matty would want them back at the Phoenix for a debrief and Mac felt sure that Riley shouldn’t spend any more time in a reminder of a past where she’d been scared and felt helpless. She wasn’t that little girl anymore, she hadn’t been for a long time, but Mac knew how easy it could be to slide back into an old, negative dynamic despite all the time and work you’d put into escaping it. He glanced at Vienne. 

“Yeah, ” Riley said, drawing the word out and giving herself a tiny shake. 

Desi’s puma daemon, Ash, padded into the room with Desi close behind. “Are you guys okay? Do you need more time, because I can talk to Matty.” 

“No, we're coming.” Mac heaved himself out of the closet with as much dignity as a tall man squashed inside a child’s wardrobe could muster. 

“We’re good," Riley said, following him. “I mean, we’re not great, but we're not terrible either.” 

Desi nodded, “Some days that’s the best you can hope for,” she said as Ash approached Mac and Riley’s daemons, sniffing at them and gently butting Sera with his head. 

  


“Why don’t you come home with me? Leanna will be there so Bozer’s probably cooking one of his best recipes to show off.” 

Riley shook her head at Mac. “Not today, I just want to go home.” 

“I’ve got plenty of beer and we can light the fire pit.” 

“I really am fine, Mac.” 

“And I’m pleased about that but I think you should come back to the house.” 

“I will next time.” 

“Are you sure?” Riley kept insisting she was fine but Mac was still worried about her. He’d driven her to her apartment like she’d asked but he really wanted her to come home with him where he, Bozer and Leanna could take care of her. She’d faced an old source of pain that day and Mac knew how doing that could leave a mark on you. Memories could resurface, doubts and regrets could make themselves known and it wasn’t always good to deal with that alone. 

“I’m sure. Thanks Mac, but all I want right now is a hot bath, a comfort movie and an early night.” 

“I just don’t like the thought of you being by yourself. I know you’ll be okay,” Mac added quickly, “but you don’t have to manage on your own.” 

“Don’t worry, you know me, I’ll be okay. How about I promise that I call you if I change my mind?” Riley smiled indulgently at Mac and he knew there was no point in insisting that she came with him. He sighed. 

“You promise?” Mac said, reluctant to let her go. “Bozer and I will come and pick you up if you call.” 

Riley opened the car door and stepped out with Sera in her hand. “I promise I’ll call if I need you. You don’t need to walk me to my door,” she said as Mac reached for the buckle of his seatbelt, “I appreciate that you're being a gentleman and all but this isn’t an old black and white movie and we're not on a date, I can walk myself home.” 

Mac put his hands back on the steering wheel of his jeep, if Riley felt that what she needed was some alone time to process everything that had happened there was no point in demanding that she came with him. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said, looking at the traffic to see if it was safe to pull out, “take care of yourself, Ri.” 

“I will, you too, give Bozer and Leanna a hug from me.” 

“Okay, sleep tight.” 

Mac pulled out into the street and looked back at Riley in his rear view mirror to see her waving at him. 

  


Hot water poured over Mac, warming him from the outside in. He closed his eyes and tried to let the remnants of the day wash away. His crow daemon hopped around his feet, splashing in the soapy water pooling in the bottom of the shower and flapping her wings to send droplets flying. When Mac felt as clean as he could he shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. Vienne sat on the shower rail watching him rub another towel over his dripping hair. 

“Riley still wants to have a relationship with Elwood even after everything that happened.” Mac looked up at Vienne’s reflection in the mirror above the sink. They’d both been thinking about that since he’d dropped Riley off and the shower hadn’t helped to clear his thoughts. Voicing them was going to be the only way to stop them circling in his head. “Does Sera?” 

“He’s cautious about it but if something happened to Elwood,” Vienne paused and clacked her beak, “if something happened to Elwood he doesn’t want Riley to regret not trying to get to know him. He says you don’t always get another chance to talk to people and once they’re gone…” Vienne flew out of the door that Mac had just opened and into Mac’s room. Mac felt a tiny shiver in his chest as she touched the limit of their connection. 

“Vi?” 

Vienne fluffed and groomed her damp feathers and pretended that Mac hadn’t spoken. Mac left the subject alone, dressing quickly then going into the living room where Bozer and Leanna were waiting. 

"I was starting to worry that you were drowning in there," Bozer said to Mac as he wandered over to the kitchen, "I was about to go all Baywatch and come rushing in to save you."

Mac leaned against the counter, "If you want to show Leanna your David Hasselhoff impression don't let me stop you, I can go back into the bathroom if that helps."

Leanna's eyebrows moved up towards her hairline. "David Hasslehoff?"

"Hey," Bozer held up a finger, "don't hassle The Hoff."

Leanna looked over at Mac, he shrugged.

"Thank you for your offer, Mac but the moment's passed now," Bozer said, "I'll have to save my slow motion running for another time."

"I can't wait to see it, babe."

"You're in for a treat," Bozer winked at Leanna. "Now who's hungry?"

They ate, drank a couple of beers and went to bed early, keen to wake up in a new day.

  


Mac, Bozer and Leanna arrived at the Phoenix together the next morning to find a summons from Matty calling them to the War Room. The message said they were needed urgently but gave no other details. They filed into the room where the privacy glass had been activated, Desi and Ash were sat waiting and Matty and her cheetah daemon Kyta, were stood by the wall display, Kyta pressing against Matty’s side with his hackles partly raised. 

“Boss?” Bozer asked, taking in the grim expression on Matty’s face. “What is it?” 

“I think you should all sit down.” Matty said, her voice soft and controlled. 

Nothing good ever came from those words. What followed was always something terrible, something that knocked the breath from you when you learned about it. As Mac sank in to the seat behind him he felt his nerves tingle with the tension that buzzed through the room like static electricity. He started to review the missions that had been running overnight and listing the potential tragedies that could have happened during each one. He refused to consider that Matty might have bad news about Jack. Vienne hopped onto Mac's lap and he put a hand around her, seeking the softness of her feathers

“When Riley didn’t arrive at work at her usual time this morning I tried calling her but her phone was dead,” Matty said, “so I pinged her cell for her location and found nothing, just empty air.” 

“Riley would never turn her phone off,” Leanna said. 

“I know,” Matty answered gently. 

A hard jolt of nausea struck Mac. If he hadn’t been sitting he might have staggered. “Matty, please just tell us what’s going on,” he said as Bozer and Leanna reached out to hold each other’s hands. 

“Riley is missing,” Matty said simply. “I sent agents to her house, nothing has been taken and there was no sign of a forced entry or a struggle but she’s vanished. One of the agents has a bloodhound daemon who tracked her scent to the parking lot of her apartment complex where it stopped.” 

“What about CCTV footage?” Bozer asked. 

“There’s video that shows Riley walking toward her apartment door last night but as she reaches it the file becomes corrupted and the data is useless.” Matty had a hand on her daemon’s back with her fingers pushed into his fur. Her voice was steady and her posture composed but Mac could see in the tension around her eyes that she was hurting. 

That break in the video feed was just after Mac had dropped Riley off,” Bozer said. “That can’t be a coincidence!” Mac had left Riley and driven away and moments later… His gut twisted. He should have insisted on her coming home with him or at least walked her to her door. She been vulnerable. She was still upset and might not have seen a threat or noticed an attacker lying in wait for her. Mac felt Vienne tremble. 

“I don’t think so either so I have our tech team looking into it, from what we’ve seen so far it looks like the hack and data corruption were done by someone who knew how to cover their tracks.” 

“What about that man you guys brought in for questioning yesterday - Mr Worst Husband of the Year?” Bozer asked, “Do we know where he is? He has a reason to want revenge on Riley.” 

“He’s still in custody. There’s no way he could have got to her, " Matty said. “We have no leads. Right now we don’t know where Riley is and we have no idea where to start looking for her.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - if you hear something late at night, some kind of trouble some kind of fight - comes from the song Luka by Suzanne Vega.


	2. And the only soldier now is me, I’m fighting things I cannot see

The sensation came back to her limbs first. Riley became aware of her heavy and uncooperative arms and leg as she struggled to surface through the thick blackness pressing down on her. Helplessness sent a thread of panic skittering through her and she fought against the fug she was caught in, clawing her way to consciousness. 

Riley’s daemon Sera was curled beside her. He blinked up at her and shuffled closer. Slowly, slowly, grimacing and with trembling muscles, Riley pushed herself onto her elbows. She closed her eyes to wait out a wave of nausea, breathing deeply until the churning sickness passed. The back of her neck stung in burning throbs and she rubbed at the spot under her hair as she looked around her. The last thing she remembered was saying goodbye to Mac and walking to her apartment block. She’d almost been at the main door when there had been a sharp pain in her neck and the paved floor had slowly come closer and closer as she fell. A mental inventory of her body found that apart from residual heaviness in her limbs, a headache and a dry mouth she was unhurt. 

She was laid on a mattress on the floor of a small room with pale green walls. The walls were bare apart from a poster of a forest scene with a blind hung above it and a floor to ceiling curtain covering a corner of the room. Her mattress was covered in clean cream sheets that were new and fresh out of their packaging – the fabric was still creased from where it had been folded were it smelled like plastic. The only other things in the room were a metal table and two chairs and a sealed bottle of water that had been placed beside the mattress within arm’s reach of her. 

“Shit,” Sera said 

  


He didn’t know what to do. 

Not knowing what to do was almost unheard of for Mac, his brain was always ticking and turning, it could be halfway through the third step of a solution before he was conscious of deciding on the first. Not knowing what to do could make Mac spiral with panic and uncertainty. 

Mac was spiralling. 

Matty was talking. Bozer was talking. Leanna was watching them. Desi’s daemon, Ash, was prowling the War Room with his hackles prickling as Desi stood motionless except for the tensing of her jaw. The display on the wall played the CCTV footage from Riley’s apartment showing Mac driving away and Riley walking towards her door before the image vanished beneath a veil of static. 

Vienne stood on Mac’s shoulder racked with tiny shivers that were too small for anyone to see but that both Mac and his daemon could feel reverberating through them. Her claws dug in to Mac’s shoulder so hard that he could feel small points of pain where the talons had broken his skin. 

“I want to go to Riley’s apartment,” Mac blurted out. He needed to move. If he stayed in the War Room much longer discussing that Riley was gone - maybe frightened, hurting or worse - and how they couldn’t help her something in him would break. All heads turned to him. “I mean,” he added, trying to sound reasonable and not like he was on the edge of something loud and uncontrolled, “I want to go to check out Riley’s place, I know we’ve had a team there already but I’d like to have a look too, it can’t hurt to have another pair of eyes go over it.” 

Matty’s eyes narrowed as she studied Mac. “Okay,” she nodded, “go.” There could have been a glint of sympathy in Matty’s eyes, there could have been a flash of understanding that Mac wasn’t able to contribute anything so she’d agreed to send him to Riley’s apartment because she wanted him out of the way. Mac wasn’t sure but he didn’t question the reason for Matty letting him go. 

“I’ll go with them,” Desi said and she and her daemon followed Mac and Vienne out of the door. 

  


“No footprints, no cigarette butts and no helpful note saying, ‘I have your friend, here’s my address, come and get her back and break every major bone in my body,’” Desi stood up from where she had been crouched studying the soil of the flower bed under Riley’s kitchen window. “I absolutely hate this guy.” Ash growled low and predatory in his throat. 

They’d checked everywhere they could think of for clues, a sign, _anything_. They’d looked in flower beds, near the trellis that trained ivy up the wall of the caretakers supply room, Mac checked Riley’s locks for signs of tampering and they walked through Riley’s apartment to look for hidden cameras or signs of unwanted surveillance. Doing that had made Mac cringe with discomfort. It felt like they were violating Riley’s space without her knowledge or consent. Mac had found himself staring at the picture of the team sitting on the hall table promising the image of Riley smiling out at him that he would get her back. He _would_ get her home. 

Desi looked up. “Has anyone checked out the roof? There are vantage points up there we haven’t explored yet and our guy could have set up some sort of nest there to watch Riley from.” 

“I don’t think so, it didn’t say anything about it in the report,” Mac answered, following Desi’s gaze up along the leaf covered trellis and onto the apartment roof. 

“Is anyone looking?” Desi asked, her and her daemon focused on the flat roof above them. 

Mac glanced around them, the street was quiet, Riley’s neighbours were all at work or school and there was no one to witness anything out of the ordinary. “No, you’re good to go.” 

“Right.” Desi tensed and Ash jumped forward, rebounding off the wall to scramble up the tree opposite it and launch himself onto the roof. 

Mac had grown used to seeing Desi and her daemon separate. But sometimes when Ash moved away from Desi he felt Vienne flinch in sympathy as she imagined the pain and anguish a person and their daemon feel when they move past the limits of the bond that linked them. 

The first time Desi had shown them that she and her daemon could separate was during a mission shortly after she’d joined the Phoenix. The team had been sprinting after a member of a terrorist organisation – a particularly despicable group of white supremacists - who planned to release a nerve gas into a shopping mall on a busy afternoon to make some sort of point about integration. The man they were chasing was holding a vial of a nerve agent and running through the curving paths of the university campus he’d stolen it from. He had a good head start on them and despite running as hard as they could the team weren’t catching up with him. 

“We’re going to lose him!” Riley had panted as the man started to disappear around the corner of a maintenance building. Ash had coiled himself with his muscles taut for a brief second then jumped onto a bench, up onto the roof of the building and disappeared from sight. The rest of the team didn’t have time to register any shock at Desi’s daemons actions when they heard a cry of alarm. They turned the corner to see Ash with their quarry’s lizard daemon in his teeth and her human prostrate on the floor. 

They secured the terrorist, returned the vial, called ex-fill then Desi stood in front of them with her hands planted on her hips. “Yes, Ash and I can separate, we’ve been able to do it for a few years now. I didn’t tell you straight away because it can freak people out and I wanted to get to know you all before I showed you that part of us. Does anyone have any questions?” 

Bozer raised his hand, “I thought only witches could separate,” he said with Ettie, his red squirrel daemon, perched on his shoulder sniffing curiously in Desi’s direction. 

“Anyone can gain the ability to separate from their daemon, it’s just that it’s usually only witches that choose to do it.” 

“So how did you do it?” Riley asked. 

“I knew a witch.” 

Mac had read about separation and it was extremely rare for witches to let outsiders go through the trial that allows human and daemon to move beyond the bond that ties them together. Most people could only move a few meters apart from their daemons but the ritual allowed witches and their daemons to extend their connection indefinitely. It was sacred to witches, part of their culture. From what Mac understood the process was painful, physically and emotionally, and it could take the daemon some time to forgive their human and rebuild their relationship with it’s new dynamic. Mac and Vienne had Pulled - moved past the edge of their connection - usually on missions where Mac felt they’d had no other choice. The pain and anguish it caused were tortuous and he couldn’t imagine what actually going through with the process of separation must be like. He understood the advantages of being able to move away from your daemon - Ash had just proved how useful it could be – but Mac’s bond with Vienne had been one of the few constants in his life and he would never do anything that could jeopardise it. 

“You must have known that witch really well for her to introduce you to the ritual of separation,” Mac said. 

“Oh,” Desi quirked an eyebrow, “I knew her very well.” 

  


“There’s nothing up here.” Ash called from the roof. “No nest, no signs of trespass, just leaves and bird poop,” he clambered down, landing silently at Desi’s feet then rubbing around her legs until she scratched him behind an ear. 

Mac gave a growl of frustration and pushed a hand into his hair. “There has to be something.” 

“The team that were here before us found a scent trail leading to the parking lot,” Desi said, staring with narrowed eyes to the space at the back of the building, “the techs back at the Phoenix are looking through CCTV footage and satellite images to see if they can track the car. It looks like that’s our best lead right now.” 

Mac gritted his teeth. “Riley wasn’t taken by a poltergeist, whoever took her have to have left some evidence behind.” 

“If there was something to find we would have found it, Mac,” Desi said. 

Desi was right. She was following mission protocols and using best practice, she was being perfectly reasonable, practical and rational and Mac wanted to smash something. He didn’t want to sit calmly and wait until lab results were back and digital data had been scrutinised. He wanted to rush headlong into a fight, kick down a door and pull Riley from the bonds of her captors. He needed to put this right and bring Riley home. 

“That’s not good enough,” Mac bunched his hands into fists, “it’s not-”

“Mac.” Desi moved to stand in front of Mac, just inside his personal space, and rested her open palms on his tensed ones. Ash flopped to his side next to where Vienne was hopping with ruffled feathers and stilled her by hooking her with a large paw. “We’re done here. There’s nothing new to find. The best place for us to be is back at the Phoenix not here looking for clues that we want to exist but doesn’t.” Desi lowered her voice, softening, “I know you want her back. I do too. But standing here getting angry isn’t going to do that and it won’t help you, okay?” 

Mac looked away from Desi and out into the street where people were getting on with their day like nothing devastating had happened near where they were standing. He didn’t want to walk away not again, not like last night when he’d just…Riley was like his sister and she could be… Vienne rubbed the top of her feathered head under Ash’s chin and flew up to sit on Mac’s shoulder, nudging him with her beak and Mac felt the anguished fist inside him waver a fraction. Desi was right. Mac knew she was. “Okay,” he told Desi, “let’s go.” 

  


It was twenty one steps from one side of the lab to the other. Less, obviously, if he took larger steps but Mac hadn’t yet managed to round his pace from one end of the room to the other down to an even twenty without having to do a silly little hop at the end. He could have taken even bigger strides to reduce the number down to eighteen but it would look like he was doing some kind of strange hamstring stretch and to make it twenty two steps from wall to wall Mac would have to shuffle and that would just be ridiculous. 

They still hadn’t found anything on the CCTV footage. 

Mac paced. 

“You’re going to wear away the linoleum and I am not splitting the cost of replacing it when Matty sends you the bill,” Bozer said without looking up from his screen. “You need to stop walking up and down like a caged tiger, dude, it isn’t good for anyone’s blood pressure.” 

“Sorry, Boze.” Mac scrubbed his hands over his face. “I just can’t believe we have all these resources here at the Phoenix and we can’t find her!” 

“I’m trying.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Mac stood next to Bozer, resting against the desk to face him and ground the heel of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry, man I know you are. It’s just,” he shook his head, regret pushing down heavily on him, “I should have insisted she came home with me or we should have called her to check she was okay.” 

Bozer looked up from his computer screen to meet Mac’s eye, Mac saw worry and self-recrimination reflected in his gaze. 

“No one knew that this was going to happen, you can’t blame yourselves,” Desi said from her seat across the desk from Bozer. Ash emerged from under the table as silently as ever and sniffed at Mac and Bozer’s daemons. “And have you ever tried to change Riley’s mind about anything once she’s made a decision? “

“That is true,” Bozer nodded, “After all the conversations we’ve had she still says that Return of the Jedi is her favourite Star Wars movie.” 

“Jedi’s her favourite?” Desi asked, “She likes the Ewoks and the happy ending doesn’t she?” 

“Everyone is together at the end of that movie, there’s nothing wrong with liking that,” Mac said. Okay, yes, The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the three original Star Wars movies but he’d always loved the bit at the very end of Jedi when everyone was stood around the campfire safe, well and happy. That was the point of the whole series wasn’t it? Getting to that moment where the bad guys had been stopped so the good guys could finally be together. In his mind’s eye Mac saw the footage of him driving away and leaving Riley again, “I should have at least walked her to her door when I took her home," he said, “I should have taken care of her better.” 

“If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with the bastard who took Riley,” Desi said, “let that motivate you. We’ll use that and all this equipment,” she threw open her arms to take in all the tech surrounding them, “to find her.” 

“Yeah,” Bozer agreed in his best ‘Double O Boze’ voice, “we’re gonna use all this super spy technology and our super spy skills and we’re gonna bring Riley home, send the SOB who took her to prison and then go out for tacos.” 

Mac nodded, then voiced another thought. “Has anyone spoken to Riley’s parents?” 

“Matty did after you left,” Bozer said. “Riley’s dad is working somewhere out of state and couldn’t be reached and Matty told her mom that she’d keep her up to date with anything we found and arranged for a team to watch her just in case.” 

Mac finally asked the question that had been haunting him, “Should we call Jack?” 

The room fell silent.

“I think we should wait,” Mac added, “until we’ve done everything we can and we have something to tell him. Something definitive.” 

Mac couldn’t call Jack and tell him he’d lost Riley. He just couldn’t. 

_‘She’s something else isn’t she?’_ Jack had said before he left to find Kovacs and Mac knew what Jack had meant by that. He’d meant: she’s amazing, she’s precious, I don’t know how it’s happened but I get to say that she’s mine. Mac knew that Jack would get home via the fastest means he could find, authorised or not, when he found out what had happened to Riley, the possibility of being court-martialled for going AWOL wouldn’t slow him down for a moment. Right then there wasn’t anywhere for the rage and desperation Jack would feel at finding out Riley was missing to go. He would feel helpless and Mac knew that there was nothing he would hate more. Mac couldn’t do that to him. 

And he couldn’t face the look Jack would give him when he realised that Mac had let Riley down. Every emotion Jack had was always clear in his expression and Mac couldn’t bear the thought of anger, blame and disappointment directed at him through Jack’s eyes. 

  


Riley had checked everywhere, in, under, on and behind every single thing in the room she was being held in but she couldn’t find a way to communicate with her friends or pry open the door. Her watch was gone so she had no idea of the time and she felt oddly unarmed and vulnerable without her rig. Sera had sniffed, climbed and scrambled but there were no gaps for him to squeeze his way through. 

“Don’t they say that rats can chew through concrete?” Riley asked him. 

Sera fixed her with a glare, his whiskers tilted in a way she knew was derisive. “Maybe we can have that as our plan B.” 

“Do we have a plan A?” 

“No,” Riley’s daemon said, “but I think we might be about to make one.” 

The door set in the wall opened and a black clad figure stepped into the room. 

Riley pulled herself to her feet, wanting to meet her kidnapper eye to eye. Not that she could see his eyes, as he stepped into the room Riley saw that he – he had the build of a man – was wrapped in a long coat with a hood that covered his head. Under the hood his face was completely shrouded in black cloth, leaving a dark, blank void where his features should be. The effect was eerie and Riley couldn’t repress a shudder. 

Riley’s captor closed the door behind him and stood facing her, his head tilted to the side as if he was studying her. 

“Hello, Riley.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - and the only soldier now is me, I’m fighting things I cannot see – comes from the song Marlene on the Wall by Suzanne Vega


	3. Pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by

“Hello Riley.” 

Riley stared back at her kidnapper evenly, her chin raised, her eyes steady. She controlled her breathing and relaxed her muscles, determined to show no signs of fear. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” the black clad figure said, “I feel like I already know you.” Along with the long black coat Riley’s kidnapper was wearing scuffed black boots, black combat trousers and leather gloves covered the hands that hung twitching at his sides. 

“I don’t know anything about you, which hardly seems fair,” Riley said. “But then I could have said good morning to you every day at the water cooler and I wouldn’t know,” she gestured at his covered face. 

“I’ve been watching you online for a long time, Artemis37,” Riley’s kidnapper said. “The work you do is exquisite. Your code is elegant. It’s poetry.” Riley's captor's daemon, a large brown stag beetle, clung to the lapel of his coat and when she saw it Riley realised it wasn’t big enough to pick up and carry her daemon, which meant that her kidnapper had picked Sera up himself when he was moving them into her prison. The taboo against touching another’s daemon was understood by everyone instinctively, touching someone’s daemon was something that was only ever done with permission and was an incredibly intimate act, one that was usually shared between lovers. That her kidnapper had broken that taboo told Riley volumes about what kind of man he was. Her stomach rolled at the thought of the violation. 

“That’s very sweet of you to say, thank you. And if that’s all you brought me here for I’ll be heading off now.” Riley took a step forwards. Sera was buried in her hair and Riley could feel him watching carefully, taking everything in. The feel of him on her shoulder was comforting, his tail curled around the back of her neck the way it had hundreds of times before. Riley felt his determination and love for her course through their connection and was strengthened. 

“No!” Her captor barked. “No,” he said again in a deliberately lowered voice. “I brought you here so I can work with you. We can learn from each other. We’re the same.” 

“We’re the same? I don’t think so.” 

“We can do the same things. How do you think I found you and arranged to bring you here? How do you think I found out about your work at that Think Tank and hacked the cameras so that they weren’t looking when I went to collect you?” 

“You hacked the cameras in my neighbourhood?” 

“Every single one. I snapped my fingers and all the eyes that were watching could see was a snow storm of static. I learned that from you! I found your code and I followed. Imagine what we could learn from each other now we’re together!” 

“I’m not like you,” Riley said. “I don’t take people from outside their homes. And I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your name” 

“My name is Archer. And you and I will create masterpieces together!” ‘Archer’s’ hands curled into fists, shaking with passion and intent. Riley could tell that he really believed it. It wasn’t a game or a bluff, he genuinely thought he’d found his muse. 

“Archer?” Riley scoffed, “and what, Archer, you've brought me here to live out some weird Phantom of the Opera fantasy? Fun fact – did you know that the Phantom of the Opera’s real name was Erik? Erik! Archer isn’t your name is it? What is it really? Judd? Chet? Chester?” 

“I didn’t hurt you when I brought you here,” Archer said in the kind of tone usually reserved for explaining simple concepts to five year olds, “I’ve made this room as nice as I could for you. I’ve given you privacy - that’s the bathroom I fitted for you!” He pointed to the section of the room hidden behind a curtain, “I’m not a psycho or a pervert, Riley. When I saw how you work I knew we’d understand each other. You see through the lines of code that make up the world just the same as I do. We’re right for each other, you just have to trust me.” 

”You want me to trust you after you kidnapped me off the street?” 

“I’ll grant you that my actions were extreme but I needed to be able to talk to you where there wouldn’t be any distractions. I knew that if you just listened, really listened, you would understand.” 

“I’m not going to be your Angel of Music, Archer.” Riley put as much disdain into his name as she could.” 

“You’ll see.” Archer nodded his head and though his features were masked Riley could read condescension in his stance. He thought he knew better than her. He thought all it would take was time and a little persuasion for her to see that. His daemon crawled along his jacket and up his face, disappearing into a fold in the fabric covering his features. Riley shuddered in spite of herself. “You will understand.” Archer turned and walked out, the lock on the door clicking decisively as it closed. 

Riley’s knees weakened and she slumped against the wall behind her. She wrapped her arms around herself against the shiver that skittered through her and slid slowly down the wall to land heavily on the floor. 

  


Riley’s neighbours seemed nice. Mac had seen a couple set off for a run together with their husky daemons bounding ahead of them and a family arrive home from what looked like – judging by the dishes of leftover food – a visit to grandma. 

He was trying to not pay attention to how much time had passed. He was going to sit in his car outside Riley’s apartment building for as long as was necessary. 

Matty had sent him home, despite his objections. 

“But, Matty...!” 

She’d cut him off with a glare. 

“I know what you’re going to say but I don’t need you here right now, I’ve got our best techs working on the CCTV and satellite images from Riley’s apartment. What I need from you is for you to rest so you're ready when we find something we need your skill set for. I’ll let you know as soon as that happens.” 

“My skill set is-”

“Go home, Blondie. Unless I call you in I don’t want to see you again for at least nine hours. If I so much as catch a glimpse of you before then you’re fired.” 

Mac drew breath to speak. 

“Those conditions start in exactly three minutes so you’d better get your ass home now or you’re going to be out of a job.” 

“Please, Matty I can’t just-”

“You can and you will,” Matty’s tone warmed, “I know you want her back, I do too, but running yourself ragged chasing empty leads is not the way to do it. I promise I’ll let you know as soon as we find anything.” 

Mac had left the Phoenix but he hadn’t gone home. He’d driven to Riley’s block where he’d parked up and settled in. 

If he watched for long enough, he thought, if he sat and looked and waited he might see something he hadn’t noticed before. It had worked in Nikki’s apartment - he’d given himself time to grow used to the obvious and the expected and when he had he’d seen something out of the ordinary. 

A car drove by. A sparrow flew into a tree with a twig in it’s beak. The sun came out from behind a cloud and a blinding glare of sunlight flashed in Mac’s rear view mirror. The passenger side door of Mac’s jeep opened and his father and his daemon climbed inside. 

“Son.” 

“Matty said to stay away from the Phoenix and I haven’t disobeyed those orders,” Mac said as his daemon jumped to the back seat of the jeep and stared doggedly out of the rear window.

“I’m not here as your boss,” James said, his daemon, a Rhesus monkey called Xarina, crouched on his lap looking wistfully at Vienne’s feathered back. 

Whenever they had lunch together Vienne perched on the back of Mac’s chair facing away from James while Xarina sat on his lap or on the chair next to him watching her with large, sad eyes. There had been, not arguments exactly, but spirited conversations between Mac and daemon about her refusal to interact with the monkey. 

“I’m not being rude,” the crow daemon had insisted, “I’m just not speaking to either of them. Compared to what I’d like to do I’m being extremely polite.” 

Vienne wouldn’t back down and Mac couldn’t persuade her to compromise so they maintained an uneasy truce whenever they were with James and Xarina where Vienne refused to acknowledge their presence and everyone else pretended not to notice. 

“I’ve put finding Riley as the Phoenix’s top priority, all our resources are available, we'll do whatever it takes.” James continued. 

“That’s...thank you.” 

“So,” James stretched his legs out as much as he could laid a hand on Xarina’s back, “I was going to ask you if you were okay but that seems like a ridiculous question.” 

“I don’t want us to have missed anything. I’m being thorough that’s all, I would have thought you’d understand that.” 

“Oh, I do understand what you’re doing just not in the way you think.” James’ expression softened in sympathy. 

Mac blinked. “I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“The thought of someone you care about suffering while you do nothing is unbearable, so you’re here because you feel like you have to be doing something or you’ll go mad? I don’t know if I’d define that as being ‘fine’ son.” 

“Tactically it’s good practice to-”

“Sit outside your missing friend’s house and watch Indian food being delivered?” James nodded at the delivery boy handing bags full of take away boxes to the people in the next apartment along from Riley. He raised a hand and it hovered in the air for a moment, Mac watched it, wondering if it was going to come down and rest on his knee but his father changed his mind, or lost his nerve, and stroked the hand along his daemons back instead. Mac and his father were talking, getting along even, but physical contact between the pair of them was kept to the bare minimum. “This,” James flicked up a hand, gesturing to where they were sat, “is not about tactics, it’s about...” 

Mac didn’t want to hear his father’s next word. It was going to be ‘desperation’, or ‘contrition’, or ‘regret’. All of which were true and Mac wasn’t ready to have his emotions laid bare before him. 

“I’m fine.”

  


“No you’re not fine,” Jack had said. “Of course you’re not. A Vulcan wouldn’t be alright right now and you my friend are not Mr Spock.” 

Thornton had been revealed as a traitor and was gone. Nikki had been revealed as not being a traitor and was also gone. Staff at the Phoenix were reeling and a halt had been called on all new missions while interim measures were hastily implemented. All agents were in the Phoenix catching up on paperwork, training and waiting to see what things would be like when the dust settled. Mac and Jack were using the time to complete mandatory fitness tests and hone their hand to hand combat skills. They were in one of the workout areas sparring. 

“I’m not the best I’ve ever been.” Mac circled Jack watching the movements he was telegraphing with each twitch of his muscles. “I’m not about to set fireworks off over the forest moon of Endor but I’m okay.” 

“You’re okay?” Jack gestured to Mac with both hands, “this is you, Mr My Girlfriend Lied To Me For Two Years About Being On A Secret Mission For The CIA But I’m Okay?” Jack was shifting his weight between the balls of his feet, his hands held up loosely in front of his face with Mac doing the same just out of arm’s reach. 

“Nikki wasn’t dishonest the whole time,” Mac said, ducking under Jack’s right hook and spinning away. “Not everything was a lie.” 

“Maybe, but a bunch of stuff wasn’t true either.” 

Mac jabbed. Jack twisted to the left and Mac’s hand cut through empty air. Mac jabbed again and Jack blocked his fist, pushing it left to rock Mac off balance. 

“And that’s before we talk about Patty. She didn’t just betray us, she betrayed her country.” Jack moved towards Mac swinging, “Right under our noses.” he punctuated each word with a punch. Right hook. Left hook. Uppercut. Right cross. Mac dodged the first three blows and blocked the fourth, grunting at the force of it. His eyes widened in surprise. He and Jack usually pulled their punches when they sparred. 

Vienne and Jack’s wolfhound daemon Larkin were sat on the edge of the mat Mac and Jack were on, still and watchful, Larkin laid out like a Sphinx and Vienne with her wings flat across her back. 

Jack was relaxed, a hint of mockery deliberate in his stance. 

“What?” Mac said to the challenge sparking in Jack’s eyes. 

“Nothing,” Jack grinned, bringing his hands back up to a guard position, “I’m just trying to get you riled.” 

“Why?” Mac regained his balance and copied Jack posture. 

“Cause you’re being far too calm about everything.” 

Mac frowned. “Thornton is going to prison for the rest of her life – she’s getting what she deserves. It’s done. There’s nothing to be not calm about.” 

“It's done? So that’s it, you’re okay? You’re over it all?” 

“Yeah, what do you want me to do?" Mac asked. "Cry? Break stuff?” 

“I want you to honour it, dude. We’ve all been lied to but you more than the rest of us. Feel that, experience it, express it and let it go.” Jack flickered his fingers like autumn leaves drifting from a tree. “You need to take all your anger and hurt and do with it what you bomb nerds do when you’ve found a device you can’t move or defuse - put a big ol’ crock pot over it and blow it up. A controlled explosion is what’s required. You need to release the pressure, bro.” 

“And you think I could do that in a sparring session?” Mac raised loose fists. “Isn’t that kind of obvious and – I don’t know-” he wrinkled up his nose, ”a little bit homoerotic?” 

Mac swung, Jack dodged easily. 

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, sweet child o’ mine!” Jack held up his hands, circling Mac, eyes fixed on him. “I’m ashamed for you, dude! Are you trying to put me off doing something by saying it’s ‘gay’? I thought you were a millennial and were too awake to say things like that.” 

Jack swung and Mac felt the rush of displaced air as he moved to the side just in time to avoid the blow. 

“It’s _woke_ , and I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t. But isn’t trying to make me mad while we’re sparring a cliché? It’s like something out of an 80’s action movie. All we need is a guitar based rock anthem and this sparring session will turn into a scene from Rocky.” Mac stepped forward and Jack ducked and twisted, dancing to the side and out of Mac’s reach. Mac was angry, of course he was, but saw no worth in giving in to it. It was like he had said, it was done. Thornton was gone. Nikki was gone. It was over. 

“I know every word to Eye of the Tiger, I could start singing right now if it will help get you in the mood. Come on, let’s get this,” Jack made a ‘come at me bro’ gesture. “Stop playing and star sparring.” 

Mac threw a punch. Jack ducked. Mac swung again, stepping forwards. Jack avoided the blow and hit out with one of his own. Mac tried to block the punch but there was too much power behind it and he hissed in pain as it reverberated through his ribs. 

“Come on, man, admit that you’re not okay.” 

“No.” Mac pulled himself upright, raised his hands to form hard, ready fists and gritted his teeth. 

Jack raised an eyebrow in a challenge and advanced at Mac again. Mac kicked out at Jack’s knee but Jack caught his foot, twisted it and used it to shove Mac off balance. He fell, caught himself on his outstretched hands and push himself back up. 

“Just say that you’re pissed.” 

Larkin stood, watching the conflict in front of her with the eyes of the predator in her ancestry. 

“No.” Mac bit out. 

“Come on!” Jack moved. Swung. Jabbed. “It’s easy,” he said as Mac steadied his stance, “just say, ‘I’m not okay.” 

“No.” Heat rose through Mac’s skin, a burning that wasn’t caused by just the workout starting in his chest and radiating outwards. 

Jack jabbed again. Mac dodged. Side stepped. Used the momentum to throw a punch of his own that Jack blocked with a twisting thrust that unsettled Mac’s balance. 

One of the beads of sweat gathering at the back of Mac’s neck ran down between his shoulder blades. So maybe he wasn’t fine but he wouldn’t let himself become distraught either. What had happened with Nikki and Thornton wasn’t okay – it was light years away from okay – but it had happened and Mac just wanted to move on. He wouldn’t crack. What would be the point in saying that he wasn’t okay? He shook his arms and loosened his fists, carefully watching Jack’s body, trying to see what his next move would be. 

Jack smirked. _Smirked._ “You’re not getting mad are you?” He circled Mac, arms lowered, cocky and goading. 

“Please, old man,” Mac narrowed his eyes, “Is that the best you can do? I’m not even mildly troubled. ” 

Jack grinned. “You only ever make a crack about my age when you can’t think of anything else to say. I’m getting to you.” 

Mac snorted,” I’m fine,” 

“You are many things, brother, but fine isn’t one of them.” 

Mac jabbed. Jack caught his fist and pulled him round to capture him in a headlock. His grip was careful. Hard enough to hold Mac firmly in place but a hair’s breadth away from actually hurting him. “Let it out, bro.” 

“No.” Mac twisted and bucked, failing to break Jack’s grip. He felt Vienne fly up to land on the light fitting above them. If he had been fighting in the field she would have dived at their opponent’s daemon with her talons bared but this was Jack and Larkin. The feeling of her agitation came through their connection like a rush of oxygen to a blaze. 

“Come on,” Jack said

The angry burn in Mac’s chest crept up to heat his cheeks and send his pulse rushing in his ears “No!” He yelled and pulled himself out of the hold. He staggered backwards, his breathing ragged. 

“You okay there bro?” Jack asked. “You seem a little not fine.” Mac threw an angry glare at Jack. “Maybe you should talk about it, you know? It’s not good to carry negative stuff around inside you. It messes you up.” 

“I’m f-” 

Jack lashed out, catching Mac by surprise with a blow he was only just able to dodge. Mac hadn’t recovered his footing when Jack lashed out again. Mac stumbled back. His fists curled. When the right hook Jack threw came close enough to brush through his hair Mac felt something inside him snap. He ducked low and charged with a yell, catching Jack’s midriff with his shoulder and driving him backwards. Then he hooked a foot around Jack’s ankle and pulled it forward so that Jack was thrown backwards and slammed hard onto his back on the mat. 

Jack grunted at the impact and Mac stood over him, pushing his hands into his sweaty hair, breathing hard. Vienne landed in front of Larkin who flopped to the floor and showed her belly. 

Jack beamed up at Mac, sweat darkening a V into his t shirt, breathless but triumphant. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel a little better now, brother.” 

  


“Son,” James said, “no one expects you to be okay. Someone you love...” 

“I’m _fine_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter titles - pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by – is from the song Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns ‘n’ Roses, which is where’ Jacks ‘woah, woah, woah, woah, sweet child o’ mine’ comes from.
> 
> The original book, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, the real name of the Phantom in Erik. For some reason I find that really funny 😁


	4. This is the fear, this is the dread, these are the contents of my head

Bozer was Anxiety Cooking. Mac opened the door to his house and smelled herbs, stock and something he couldn’t identify...soy sauce? Cutlery clashed, pans of water churning in a rolling boil bubbled and Mac peeked into the kitchen, wary of whatever mayhem Bozer had created with his displacement activity. 

Mac said a tentative, ‘hi’ as he rounded the corner. 

“Hi.” Bozer was facing the stove briskly waving his arms around as he stirred pots and pans like a conductor leading an orchestra, he didn’t look up as he spoke. Desi was poking curiously with a wooden spoon at the contents of a pan and Leanna was leaning against the counter cradling a wineglass full of fruit juice in her hand

“What are we making?” Mac asked. 

“Thai.” Bozer replied. 

“Thai is, um...” Leanna said. 

“Thai is one of Riley’s favourites.” Mac finished for her. 

“Leanna,” Bozer called, frowning down at the dish he had just tasted, “could you pass me the tomato puree from the fridge?” 

Leanna opened the fridge door and poked her head inside. “I think something’s gone off in here,” she said. 

“What?” Bozer asked, “No it’s fine, that’s just the camembert.” 

“Babe, it smells terrible.” 

“I know but it tastes good.” 

“How can it taste good? It smells like bad feet.” 

“Yeah but it tastes like,” Bozer paused to think, “good feet.” 

They both huffed in laughter and held each other, their foreheads touching, their eyes closed and their daemons nuzzling one another. Mac looked out of the kitchen window at the darkening sky beyond it. Soon it would be twenty four hours since Riley was taken. “Maybe I should start a fire,” he said and headed for the deck. 

Orange and red flames leapt from the match he held to the wood in the fire pit sending shadows dancing across the deck and sparks floating upwards. Mac watched the fire build as Vienne flew over to perch on the table beside him. 

“Do you think this is what it was like for him when your mom got sick?” she asked. 

“What it was like for who?” Mac said. 

“You know.” 

Silence stretched out between Mac and his daemon. They glared at each other with the fire crackling beside them. 

Mac didn’t always know what his daemon was thinking but he could usually tell what she was feeling. She’d been withdrawn and distracted since they’d learned that Riley had been taken. Mac had thought she’d was reeling as much as he was. She’d barely spoken since they’d seen James on Riley’s street but that often happened when they’d seen James, after their lunches with his father Vienne could be monosyllabic and cold. Mac knew that she had been brooding over the conversation in the car but he hadn’t expected her thoughts to go in the direction they had. 

“Do you think this is what it was like for your dad when your mom got sick and he couldn’t do anything to help her?” Vienne continued. 

“It’s not the same.” Mac’s voice was loaded with warning. 

Vienne flapped her winds and lifted up into the air before dropping down again with ruffled feathers. “I know the situations aren’t the same but he will have felt helpless and we feel helpless.” 

“Riley isn’t sick. Mom didn’t get abducted. It’s not the same.” 

“It’s not that different, not if you think about it. Your dad and Xarina must have felt like we do right now when your mom was in the hospital.” 

“Why would you even say that?” Mac asked, angry in a way he didn’t understand. 

“Because it’s true! Your mom was sick for months. Imagine feeling like this for months, Mac.” 

“What has that got to do with anything? Why are you talking about this?” 

“Because I’ve been thinking about it and if I’m thinking about it we should be talking about it.” 

“So what do you want me to say?” Mac asked, “What do you want from me? Do you think that if I call my dad and tell him I feel the same as he once did it will make it easier to find Riley?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“Do you want me to say that because he was sad about mom it’s okay that he grew more and more distant and then left?” It wasn’t fair to aim his frustrations at his daemon but Mac couldn’t stop himself. What she’d said may have had truth in it but that didn’t mean it was forgivable. 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“You won’t even look at my dad or Xarina but you’re on his side now?” 

“I’m not on his side! It’s not about sides!” Vienne snapped. ” I’ve just been thinking that we hate feeling like we can’t help Riley and Sera and he couldn’t help your mom.” 

“It’s not the same, Vi. My dad couldn’t do anything about my mom’s illness but I can follow clues and find evidence. Cancer took my mom but we’ll get Riley back.” 

“I know. That’s what I want too.” 

“Then why are you talking about my dad, what has he got to do with anything?” 

“It was just something I was thinking about. I’m not criticising you. Why are you angry?” 

Everyone fought with their daemon. Some people more than others and not everyone would admit it but everyone did. Mac didn’t actually trust people who said they and their daemons never argued, they were either liars or they had a worrying lack of depth. Mac and Vienne didn’t argue that often but when they did there was yelling and hot burning fury that made them both unguarded with their words. 

“Because, I...” Riley being taken should never have happened. Mac hadn’t stopped it, he’d been right there but he hadn’t stopped it. Things were a mess and he didn’t know how to fix them and fixing things is what he was supposed to be good at. And Vienne was probably right, when his mom had become sick his dad probably had felt the same way he was feeling and knowing that only made his anger that much worse. “I don’t want to talk about him right now.” 

“You don’t want to talk about your dad so all of a sudden we’re not allowed to?” Vienne’s tone was biting, full of the ire about James that she usually left unsaid. “You’re the one who let him back into our lives. You're the one who has lunch with him and his stupid monkey daemon. What’s next? Are you going to invite him for Christmas dinner? He has fifteen years of presents to catch up with, maybe if you ask nicely you’ll get that chemistry set you wanted when you were eleven.” 

“I just want to try to...” 

“Have a normal dad?” Vienne interrupted, “He’s not a normal dad and you’ve never been a normal kid. He left us to go and save the world because he couldn’t live at home anymore like we were the only people on the planet he didn’t care about.” 

They hadn’t been this openly honest with each other about James’ desertion for a very long time. When Mac had been younger Vienne used to shift into a large dog and would snuggle in bed with Mac at night and they’d sometimes talk about his dad, where he might be and if he still loved them. Then Mac grew older, Vienne settled into her crow form and the conversations gradually stopped. His father’s absence became an old, scar tissue covered wound with that they let be. 

“It’s not that simple, he’s said that he was wrong to do that and he was…” Mac shook his head, suddenly weary. “If I don’t see him and something happens to him, or to me, then won’t all those months I spent looking for him be wasted?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Vienne shook her wings in a crow’s version of a scornful shrug. “Why do you see him if you’re not sure it’s worth it?” 

“Because I’m never sure about anything!” Mac stared down at the glowing embers of the fire, “Not about my plans or my builds or my dad. I don’t know why you won’t try to understand, Riley would get it.” 

After the mission when Mac and Riley had fought to bring oxygen to a hospital full of children Mac had been unsettled and unhappy. He sat with Riley in their debriefing meeting twisting paperclips into jagged, unfinished shapes. Afterwards Riley had offered - insisted – that she drive Mac’s jeep. She’d slipped on her sunglasses, turned the radio up and took them into the city. She bought them lunch from a brightly coloured food truck with a furry dice in the window that Mac had never found again then drove them to the Griffith Observatory. They’d sat together on the grass outside the observatory building to eat the best falafels he’d ever had (he hadn’t told Bozer that) and Riley listened to him talk about the Meridian line, telescopes and planetariums and didn’t say anything about fathers, or good men, or fathers who were good men. She’d understood. 

“Riley isn’t here!” Vienne yelled. 

“I know!” Mac yelled back. 

Desi’s head appeared around the stairs to the deck, “Guys?” she called cautiously. “Are you okay?” 

“We’re fine.” 

“No, you’re not.” Desi dismissed Mac’s words with a raised eyebrow, “something bad has happened to someone you care about, you’re not supposed to be okay.” She walked up the steps and out onto the deck with her daemon alongside her. “Not long after we’d first separated Ash and I had an argument that almost got us thrown out of a hotel. This boy can holler when he wants to.” Desi strokes her daemon behind an ear and he closed his eyes, purring. “I don’t know, maybe the whole point of having a daemon is to help you figure out what you want, what you need and what you’re feeling, and sometimes yelling is the best way to do that. What do you think?” 

Mac looked down at Vienne who met his eye with a level stare of her own. Mac needed Vienne’s comfort and she needed his but they both withdrew when they were hurting, sometimes even from each other. 

“You don’t have to answer that,” Desi quirked a smile at Mac. “I’m just here to tell you that dinner will be ready in about five minutes.” 

“Okay, thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Desi said and walked back inside the house. 

  


Riley had collected a ball of Blu-Tac from the back of the poster on the wall of her prison. She’d picked a finger nail sized ball of sticky gum from the picture leaving just enough behind to keep it sticking to the wall. She’d looked at the screws holding the desk and chairs together but only one was loose enough for her to remove with her nail, the rest were too tightly fastened for her to undo them without using a tool. She didn’t know what she would do with a small blue ball of sticky stuff and a single screw but they might prove to be useful. Mac would have been able to do something with them, and Riley hoped that if she waited and watched she could hopefully gather other items together that she could use to escape. And they were hers. Her captor didn’t know she had them. ‘Archer’ didn’t have complete control of her. 

Sera scurried along the top of the curtain that hid the bathroom area. “You know, we could take off some of these curtain rails.” 

Riley looked up from where she was sat. “He’d notice they were missing.” 

“True.” Sera huffed and climbed down to sit next to Riley. “We could pull the curtain down and use it to restrain him in a fight the way Mac did with that man who’d infected himself with a deadly virus.” 

“We could.” Riley eyed the curtain critically. “I’d prefer to avoid a one on one fight with Archer, he’s a big guy and I don’t believe he’s coming in here without a weapon, I don’t care how much he talks about how we’re kindred spirits.” 

Riley was sat on the mattress with one leg stretched out in front of her and the other drawn towards her with the knee raised. The headache and nausea left by the stun gun had passed leaving her feeling helpless, scared and furious in complex shifting layers. Her guard had been down enough for her kidnapper to be able to get to her without her being aware of the attack. That was infuriating and it needled at her pride, she thought she’d improved her situational awareness since that time when Desi had slapped the ‘Bang!’ post it on her forehead but obviously not, she’d been caught unawares. Bested. She gritted her teeth. 

Riley’s memories of what had happened immediately before she’d been taken were hazy. She remembered walking towards her apartment and had a vague memory of talking to Mac just beforehand. 

Mac had been there. 

Riley couldn’t be sure that her kidnapper hadn’t hurt Mac when he’d taken her. She wanted to ask Archer about him but didn’t want to give him the power of fear for her friend over her. She felt sure he would use the knowledge that she was scared for Mac to manipulate her and didn’t want to give him that advantage. 

She was scared for herself too. She was trapped. Locked away like when she’d been in prison but with no guards to maintain a semblance of order and removed from all the things that made her special. Without her friends and a computer she was just Riley. Not an agent, not Artemis37, just an ordinary person with abandonment issues and a past full of bad choices. 

“Stop it.” Sera climbed onto Riley’s raised knee. “We survived prison, we did that without a laptop and without our friends. We will survive this. And this is different from when we were in jail, we were stuck in there for years without anyone else but our friends are going to come for us. You know they are. Mac’s probably making something out of toothpicks and cornflakes to find our tracks, Bozer will be in the lab programming Sparky to search through traffic cameras, Desi will be kicking someone in the face and Matty will be yelling at people over the phone. They’re going to find us.” 

“I know, but-” Riley closed her eyes and shoved her fingers into her hair. “I don’t like being locked up and I don’t like not having control.” She let out a growl of frustration and slammed her hand down on the mattress. “I hate feeling like a little girl who can’t do anything about the screwed up things that are happening around her.” 

Sera ran down Riley’s leg and up to curl up under her chin, nuzzling and licking her. “I know. We'll be okay,” he crooned, “You’ll see, everything will be all right.” 

The door on the wall opened with a smooth snick and Archer appeared with two plastic tubs and a bottle of juice in his hands. 

“I bring sustenance!” he announced, holding up the food. He placed the bottle and two packets of pasta salad on the table along with two lots of wooden cutlery. “I haven’t opened them,” Archer said, holding up the packet so Riley could see the seal was still intact, “see, I haven’t done anything to them, they’re perfectly safe.” He pulled out a chair then sat, gesturing to the other chair in an invitation for Riley to sit. Riley stood, folding her arms. 

“Aren’t you going to join me?” Archer asked. 

“No.” 

“This is a good opportunity for us to talk.” 

“I’m not going to sit and chat. You don’t chat with your kidnapper.” 

Archer sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Kidnapper is an ugly word.” 

“Being ugly doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Sera tightened his grip on Riley’s shoulder to remind her that he was there. 

Archer let out a long suffering sigh. “I want us to get to know each other.” 

“You could have come up to me and said ‘hi’,” Riley tried not to look at the food on the table, she was hungry but she wasn’t going to let Archer know that she wanted what he’d brought her, “You could have DMed me.” 

“That wouldn’t have worked, you wouldn’t have understood if I’d come to you that way. You had to be shown to truly understand that we’re alike. I have to show you that we can be friends.” 

“My friends have never locked me in a room.” 

“Riley,” Archer shook his head, “why are you making this so difficult? I’m being a gentleman.” 

“A gentleman?” 

“I haven’t touched you since I brought you here. I’ve given you privacy,” Archer nodded at the curtain covering the bathroom area, “I’ve brought you food.” 

“You tazered me, took me from my apartment and locked me in a room!” 

“That was a means to an end.” 

“Do you expect me to think that makes it okay?” 

Archer sighed. “If you can just look at things from my point of view it would be easier for you to understand.” 

“I find it hard to get into the mind-set of someone who abducts women. I think if you ask around you’ll find that most people would.” 

“It shouldn’t be so hard for you to think about someone other than yourself.” Archer’s voice was strained, his hands twitched where they rested on the table. 

Riley threw her arms wide. “I’m the only one trapped in here, who else am I going to think about?” 

Archer surged to his feet, knocking his chair over. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, agitation radiating off him. “This isn’t going well,” Riley could hear from the rough burn in his voice that he was fighting to sound calm, “I think I’d better leave and wait until you are feeling more reasonable.” 

“This is me being reasonable,” Riley allowed the hint of a snarl to colour her tone, “if you don’t like it you might not want to see me when I’m angry.” 

Archer gave a disgusted scoff. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” He walked out and slammed the door behind him.” 

  


The team gathered in the War Room the next morning. Mac and Vienne agreed to not talk about their argument by not talking about it and she sat stiffly on his shoulder as they walked into the Phoenix building. There hadn’t been an agreement to meet there but as they walked into the War Room as Matty stood at the front of the room like she’d been expecting them. Mac had checked his phone as soon as he’d woken up. There was no new intel, no phone calls, no leads from the CCTV footage. No news on Riley. Nothing. 

The team stood together in silence. Mac saw the worry and dread he was feeling in his friend’s faces

Bozer spoke first. “I know we agreed we’d wait until we knew what we were dealing with before we made a decision about this but there’s nothing new to work with and no clues about where Riley is. None of us want to tell him what’s happened when we can’t give him good news but I think he has a right to know.” Bozer cleared his throat. “I think we should call Jack.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - this is the fear, this is the dread, these are the contents of my head – comes from the song Why by Annie Lennox
> 
> The ‘has something gone off in the fridge? No, that smell is the Camembert’ conversation has happened a lot in my house. I do like Camembert but it does smell terrible. 😉
> 
> I looked but couldn’t really find out if what we call Blu-Tac in the UK is called Blu-Tac in America – it’s a sticky clay like stuff that you use to put posters up with – so I just called in Blu-Tac, I hope everyone knows what I’m talking about ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.


	5. She brings out the best and the worst you can be

Jack stepped out of the gas station into the morning sunshine with a jalapeno beef jerky in his hand and fell in love. 

He was getting to know the neighbourhood, doing low-key surveillance and establishing his cover identity. It was a nice town, quiet and friendly. If he was going to set up a gun trafficking ring somewhere no one would ever expect to find one he’d do it in a place like that. 

Larkin, Jack’s wolfhound daemon was wrinkling her nose at the smell of petrol as the lady on the bicycle rode past. She was singing to herself with the wind catching her hair and sending it streaming out behind her. “Oh, she takes care of herself, she can wait if she wants she's ahead of her time, Oh, she never gives out and she never gives in, she just changes her mind.” The woman on the bike smiled, content with herself, the song, the breeze in her hair and the feel of her nightingale daemon flying beside her. Her simple happiness and unselfconsciousness was so charming that Jack watched her ride past him silently, loving her and trying to tuck the tiny moment of sweetness inside himself. 

“We could go after her," Larkin said. 

“Nah, what would we say?” Jack asked. “This way I get to have a lovely memory of her, our time together will be pure and perfect forever.” 

“You haven’t had any time together.” 

“Only technically, besides, I don’t need anyone else to miss.” 

Jack had spoken to Desi that morning. Through each of their phone calls he’d listened to her getting to know and care for his Phoenix family. The first conversations they’d had when she joined the Phoenix were about how the team were good but undisciplined, that quickly changed to being about how they were crazy but brave and then changed again to be full of admiration and affection. It had been wonderful to watch – or hear - her learning about the team and how special they all were. Jack had a cousin who was a teacher who talked about the joy and satisfaction of watching the kids in his class grow and he sometimes wondered if he could have been a teacher in a different life. He tried to imagine himself in a shirt and tie standing in front of a class with twenty five sets of young eyes on him as he talked about phonics, or history or - Jack pondered what subject he could have taught - art maybe. If he taught really little kids art lessons would be about things like mixing colours and drawing rainbows and he totally knew how to do that. He’d never thought of himself that way before but months away from his friends, missing them, guiding them like some kind of cool older brother/uncle/father/Jedi Master figure had made him wonder about what that life would be like. 

Maybe he could think about retiring from field work after he caught Kovacs. He could train new recruits. That would be something. 

“You must be getting bored,” Larkin said. “You only ever think about retiring when you get bored on a mission. You’ll hear a gun shot or find a lead and we’ll rush off and all your thoughts of slowing down and barking orders at new recruits forgotten, you’ll see, .” 

“Maybe.” Maybe he was getting tired. The thrill of the chase was still there, so were the adrenaline rushes and the camaraderie, but they didn’t feel the same as they used to. He wasn’t as hungry as some of the younger guys on his team. It made him feel old and something else, left behind maybe or out of touch, a relic. 

“You’re not usually this reflective when you’re buying jerky,,” Larkin said. 

“There’s a big blue sky above us and not much to do, what else am I going to do except think?” 

“I don’t know.” Larkin’s tongue lolled out and she and Jack started walking back to their car - heading in the opposite direction from the singing woman. “You could’ve bought yourself a newspaper when you got the jerky and we could have had a go at the crossword.” 

“That could have worked,” Jack nodded as he considered Larkin’s suggestion, “as long as there were no cryptic clues, I hate cryptic clues.” 

They drove back to the apartment complex he and his team had been staying in. Larkin put her head out of the car window and sniffed in deep breaths of the scents in the air. Jack could feel her interest in the smells they were passing - coffee, exhaust fumes, flowers, a deli, - but under his deamons pleasure in the sensations of what was around her Jack could feel a growing sense of unease. Something in the bottom of his gut ached with a warning. He tightened his hold on the steering wheel of his car and pressed the accelerator down harder with his foot. 

“There’s a message for you,” Jack’s teammate said as he walked their apartment. She was staring down at the map that had been opened on the table in front of her and didn’t look up at Jack as she spoke. “You need to call headquarters right away, it sounds urgent.” 

“Thanks,” Jack said, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and headed to his room to make the call. 

  


“It’ll trace all the different cars that passed Riley’s place within an hour of her disappearance?” Mac asked, sat opposite Bozer. He wasn’t going to pace up and down the War Room. He wasn’t. He was going to act like an agent and not like a worried friend. Professionalism, hard work and focus were what was going to get Riley back. Vienne was sat on the arm of the chair beside him and Mac had a hand rested on her back. He could feel the occasional twitch and flutter of her wings and knew that she wanted to take off and fly around the room, just as restless as he was. 

“That’s what the tech’s who made it told me, the coding they used is some that Riley wrote for a previous mission so it should work,” Bozer said. 

“If Riley wrote the programme it will work.” 

“That’s what the techs said.” Bozer tapped his tablet again and images of cars and an overhead view LA streets opened on the interactive board on the wall. Mac watched the images flicker and change wondering if one of the cars he could see was the one that took Riley away from them. 

The War Room door opened and Matty walked in, she pushed the door shut behind her and tapped the glass walls to activate the privacy screen. All eyes in the room turned to her. 

“I’ve spoken to Jack.” 

Everyone in the room stilled. 

“And?” Bozer asked. 

Matty paused, considering her words. “He was upset.” 

“Upset?” 

“Upset is one way to describe his reaction. There are other more colourful words I could use but I’m sure I don’t have to go into details.” 

Mac could name of few of the things that Jack could have said and none of them would be fit for family viewing. Some of the less colourful, less four letter based words he might have used were: devastated, determined, protective, furious. 

“Is he coming back to LA?” Bozer asked. 

“He started leaving as I was talking to him. I’ve called Washington to arrange for him to have a leave of absence so he isn’t accused of going AWOL.” 

“So he’s on his way now?” 

“He’s on his way right now.” 

  


He’d been on two buses, he’d stolen a car and was hunched as comfortably as he could be in an army delivery plane and none of the time or travelling had dampened his fury. 

His metal seat was hard underneath him and the cargo he was surrounded by rattled with jarring, teeth clenching clangs. The soldiers travelling in the plane were giving him space. He’d been polite, ‘hi, how are you’ and explained that he’d had a family emergency and they’d understood the steely look in his eyes and gave him space. 

Someone had taken his girl. Someone had the audacity and the stupidity to think they could take Jack Dalton’s little girl. They’d taken her somewhere her family couldn’t find her. Somewhere Jack couldn’t reach her. She could be cold, or scared or hurting. She could be hurting right then. In that very moment. She could be crying out for someone’s help, crying out for him and he couldn’t get to her. 

Jack wanted to tear the world apart. He could have ripped rocks, earth and the sky to shreds with his bare hands. Larkin stood motionless beside him, her hackles raised and her lip curled to bare her canine teeth. Stone and mud and blood could have gathered under his nails, in Larkin’s jaws and he wouldn’t have stopped fighting. Not until Riley was safe. 

When Jack found the person who’d taken Riley - and he would - even if it took him the rest of his life, they were going to suffer. 

  


“So what have we got?” 

The code had been running for forty eight hours and Matty stood in front of the team as they gathered around the wall display in the War Room. 

“The code the tech’s set up has been tracking the cars that passed Riley’s apartment and they’ve also been checking to see if any other CCTV cameras in the city had similar problems to the one in Riley’s apartment.” Bozer stood and walked to stand next to Matty. “They’ve found a few places that had camera failures around the same time as the ones in Riley’s street, most of them look like it’s to do with old or faulty equipment, but this is the parking lot of a shopping mall twenty minutes after Riley goes missing.” Bozer tapped the screen and a video showing the entrance to a parking lot started to play. It showed cars driving in and out then the picture vanished behind a blizzard of snow and static. 

“How long does that last?” Mac gesture to the white veil covering the picture. 

“Long enough to park up, move Riley into a different vehicle and leave,” Bozer said. “We’ve been searching for matches between cars that were seen driving near Riley’s apartment and ones caught going into the mall. Here,” Bozer tapped the screen to pause the recording, “this blue car goes in and doesn’t come out but this black one, drives out just minutes after the blue one went in and the driver of both cars is wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap.” 

“So where is that black car now?” Mac asked. 

He looked at his team. They were exhausted. All they’d done since Riley was taken was work, eat, sleep when they were about to drop then work again. All their waking hours were spent on looking for Riley. Doing anything else was inconceivable. It would have felt like a betrayal of their family. 

The door to the War Room opened and Jack walked in. 

Jack’s body language screamed that everyone should stay away from, his face was shadowed, he looked tense and combat ready. Larkin was beside him, silent and foreboding. 

“What happened?” Jack said. 

The words fell heavily into the room, leaving everyone stunned by their impact. Matty recovered first and stepped forward to give Jack the timeline of Riley’s abduction. 

“Show me the CCTV footage from her apartment.” 

Matty tapped the screen and brought up the footage of Riley walking to her apartment that dissolved into nothing. 

“You left her?” Jack said, his only movements the flickering of his eyes in Mac’s direction and the twitch of one clenched fist. 

“She said she was okay, there was no reason to think that anything was going to happen.” Mac heard himself reply. 

Jack turned from Mac to stare at the image of Riley on the screen. “You left her.” 

  


Archer placed the food and the bottle of water he’d brought down on the table then spun around without speaking. The door to the room Riley was being held in closed behind him with a definitive click. 

“Do you think he’s always this melodramatic?” Sera asked. “It’s like having dinner brought to us by an angry four year old, I bet he’s pouting under that mask he likes so much.” 

Riley gave a snort of laughter. Archer had stopped speaking to her when he brought her food, Riley thought it was his idea of a way to wear her down so she’d be desperate for someone to talk to and would look forward to seeing him. 

“I think he probably is, he’s probably one of those people who pouts and sighs if there are more than two people in the line in front of him at the supermarket.” 

“I bet he asks to speak to the manager a lot.” 

Riley stood and fetched the packets that Archer had left for her. “I’d like to speak to the manager about the food in this place,” she held up her lunch, “pasta salad? Again? Does nowhere round here do burgers?” she rolled her eyes. “When we get out of here I swear I’m going to eat nothing but take away for two weeks.” Riley pulled the plastic film off her food. She’d eaten everything Archer had brought her, she needed the energy and it would be foolish to allow herself to starve and weaken. She’d been stretching too, doing her warm up routine, to keep active and to keep herself loose and ready. There was no way to tell the passage of time or know whether it was day or night and she wanted to avoid growing lethargic. Riley patted the place on her mattress where the screw and the ball of Blue-Tac hidden and started to eat. Her stash looked pathetic, but it was hers, even if she never got the chance to use the things she’d stored away they were there as her act of defiance. She wasn’t beaten or broken. She was staying strong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - She brings out the best and the worst you can be – comes from the song She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel, which is the song that the lady on the bike who Jack falls in love with is singing.
> 
> I'm with Jack, I hate cryptic crosswords clues too.


	6. Where we fight our parents out in the streets, to find who's right and who's wrong

“Agent Dalton.” James walked into the War Room and into the barbed tension arcing between the team. He’d heard that there’d been developments in the investigation into Riley’s abduction. He’d heard that Dalton was back. He wanted to see his son. 

Interpersonal interactions weren’t one of his strengths. James knew that. In the past evaluations of his interpersonal skills had ranged from ‘could do with improvement, area’s for development include displays of empathy’ to ‘MacGyver, has anyone ever told you you’re a very cold fish?’ but even he could sense the acute awkwardness spiking through the room like trapped lightening. On the floor beside him Xarina twitched and took hold of her tail in her little hands. 

Jack acknowledged James with a tiny nod then spoke to Matty, “What’s our next move?” 

A muscle in Mac’s jawline tensed. He wasn’t meeting Jack’s eyes, looking down and away with uncharacteristic uncertainty. Vienne was staring at Larkin but the wolfhound didn’t return her gaze. 

“Your next move should be to rest, Jack.” Matty said. “You need to be ready for when we have something we can act on.” 

“Rest?” The word was filled with such disgusted disbelief that even James flinched. 

“When did you last sleep?” Matty returned calmly. 

Dalton shook his head. 

“Go.” Matty prompted. “I’ll find somewhere for you to put your head down.” 

“Matty,” Dalton finally turned away from the image of Riley on the screen, his eyes were haunted, at terrible heartbroken odds with the aggression of his stance, “I can’t sleep.” 

“I think you should try," Matty said. James didn’t see her maternal side often and whenever he did he always felt a jolt of surprise followed by a scoff at his own blindness. He knew how caring Matty was, the kind of love she was capable of, it was just that she so rarely allowed it be expressed with softness that he could forget she had that side to her. “You want to be ready, right?” 

Bozer, arguably the most emotionally intelligent of the agents in the room, spoke up. “Maybe you can come back to the house? I can make you something to eat – when is the last time you had a home cooked meal?” 

James had initially been against keeping Bozer at the Phoenix but he had come to appreciate the young man’s worth. His real world experience and knowledge of the human elements of a situation were what made him a good agent. It was one of the rare circumstances where James was happy to admit he’d been wrong. 

A muscle in Jack’s jaw rippled as he clenched his teeth. “No,” he said. “No thank you.” He added as an afterthought. 

“Not a home cooked meal then,” Bozer said, “But I can rustle up something for you to eat in the break room. Agent Barelies’ wife has been baking again so you know there’ll at least be some cookies worth having. Unless someone has eaten them all.” Bozer looked pointedly at Desi. 

“What?” Desi gave Bozer a wide eyed look. “There were plenty of cookies left last time I was in the break room.” 

“Uh huh,” Bozer hummed as he pulled the War Room door wide and held it open. 

Desi lay a hand on Dalton’s arm, the muscles under her palm stayed hard but he didn’t shake off her touch. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat,” she said, “On the way I can fill you in on everything that we’ve done so far.” 

They left the room leaving Mac, Matty, James and their daemons behind. 

“Son. I have some information for you.” 

James had been following the money. 

The Phoenix’s priority was finding Riley – of course it was – but James had also been keeping an eye on the case that had led the team to the house with the abusive husband. James had ensured that man had been thrown into a very deep hole and that his wife and daughter were safe and then he tracked the money his organisation had been moving around with microscopic detail. The cash had led James to an offshore bank account, a shell company and then an address. 

“About Riley?” 

“Not yet. It’s about the drug runners, I have a location and a tac team ready to breach the group’s headquarters. I thought you might like to see the op through to the end?” 

James watched as confusion, understanding then decisiveness passed across his son’s face. Xarina pressed herself against James’ leg as Vienne turned her head away. 

“Yeah," Mac said, “Yeah, let’s finish it.” 

  


“I can’t remember the last time I just sat,” James said. “Not during a steak out, not waiting to spot a mark or gather intel, just sat.” 

Mac looked over at his father from the passenger seat of the car they were sharing. He was twisting a paperclip with no idea what shape he was forming. He had a feeling the metal his hand wouldn’t end up in a discernible shape, he was expecting it to contort into jagged mess before snapping into shards in his fingers. Vienne sat on Mac’s thigh silently watching the silver line bend and turn. 

“I think the last time I just sat, really just sat, if I don’t count that fishing trip we went on, was when I was sitting next to your mother in the hospital.”

Mac gave the paperclip a twist. He didn’t know why his father was talking about that. He didn’t want to talk about that. 

“She liked me to read to her but she said that the newspaper had too much reality in it.” James shook his head with affection and scratched Xarina behind an ear. “I used to read her your story books instead. She was particularly fond of James and the Giant Peach.” 

Mac remembered that book, it had been dog eared and worn and had a hand written note from his mother in the front cover: 

_Happy 5th Birthday, Angus!_

_Our birthday wish for you is that you have lots of presents and cake, and that someday you’ll get to go on adventures as fun and thrilling and the one James has in this story (but hopefully yours will have a lot less sharks!)_

_All our love_

_Mommy and Daddy_

“I always liked that book," Mac said. 

“Me too.” James smiled. “I’ve always wanted to try and make something fly by attaching lots of birds to it – it probably wouldn’t work but I’d like to have a go. For the sake of scientific curiosity.” 

“I once made a trampoline fly by attaching helium balloons to it.” 

“So you did," James said “How would you rate the experience?” 

“It wasn’t without it’s problems.” 

Mac and James shared a laugh. 

A voice came through on their comms telling them that the tac team were almost in position. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Mac asked. Why are we having this conversation, he thought. 

“Because since that time at your mother’s hospital bed I’ve done everything I could to avoid having to sit, feel or reflect. 

Mac’s eyes fell closed. “Dad.” 

“And,” James continued, “I can see that in you right now.” 

“Dad can we not,” Mac pressed a forefinger against his tightly drawn frown, Vienne nuzzled his chest with the side of her feathered head. “Can we just not, not right now.” 

“The part of you that chose to reverse at full speed towards the man who was trying to kill us on the day you found me is spiralling right now.” James was undeterred and Mac looked out his window as his muscles twitched with the urge to bolt out of the car. “You want to rush in and do something,” James continued, “you want to fix this and you can’t.” 

“Riley is my friend, she’s like my sister, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get her back.” 

“No there isn’t. I’m not saying there is. You might say the reason that we’re here is for a moment of respite.” James nodded to the dry cleaners they were sitting opposite. “I thought you’d want to have something to do, to focus on; something you can finish instead of just waiting for a computer search to end.” 

Mac licked his lips. That made sense. If he had to spend much more time in the lab watching the status bar on the search creep slowly forwards he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Pacing wasn’t going to ease the need to _go_ that was pulsing inside him. If he didn’t move with purpose soon he might break. Mac could feel fissures forming inside him, they sat uncomfortably in his psyche, like cracked, broken skin that he itched to shed. 

“I spent fifteen years doing everything I could to avoid being still enough to feel the emotions I didn’t want to have,” James said, “and I’m not saying that was healthy but here, now, in the short term, I thought having a purpose to distract you could help.” 

“Sir,” a voice on the comms said, “we’re ready to breach.” 

  


They didn’t come quietly. Mac was pleased about that. Maybe he shouldn’t have been but he was. He shouldn’t have enjoyed the fight or having somewhere to focus his fury at Riley’s kidnapper, at himself and at Jack for being right to be angry with him. It was like he was reversing at top speed at the man who was trying to kill him and his father. All the anger and hurt had to go somewhere. Every self-recriminating thought he’d had since he’d first watched the footage of himself walking away from Riley had grown inside him louder, sharper and more insistent than ever when Jack had said, ‘You left her’. Mac hadn’t been able to look at anyone then, irrationally afraid that if he met anyone’s eye they’d be somehow able to hear those thoughts. 

The fight moved from the back room of the dry cleaners into the alley behind it. Vienne swooped down and raked her talons along the back of the daemon belonging to the man they were chasing. The fox daemon jumped up at Vienne, snapping with her sharp teeth. Her human spun and lashed out, catching Mac across the jaw with a closed fist. 

The pain of the blow was clear and bright, a hot, white burst that made Mac stagger. Before he’d processed the decision to do it he retaliated with a clenched fist of his own. He swung, connected, one jab, another. Mac’s opponent threw a punch and missed. Mac stepped to the side, confined by the narrow alley they were in and driven to push forward by his rage. He struck out with a right cross then a left. Mac’s opponent caught him with a blow to the ribs and he let out a grunt of pain that became a roar of primal fury. Mac struck out again and his fist connected. Then he hit out with another punch. And another. And another. And his attacker crumpled to the ground. 

Mac sagged forward, resting his hands on his thighs. He gulped for air in the alley that smelled of cigarette smoke and the pile of rubbish mouldering in a corner. 

  


“We got them.” James leaned on the car beside his son. 

Mac was sat on the hood of their car drinking deeply from a bottle of water. A red mark that would become a bruise was spreading over his jaw. He screwed the lid back on the bottle with slow precision. “We did.” 

James and Mac watched in silence as an unmarked Phoenix van full of bad guys drove away. 

“How do you feel now?” James asked. 

“I felt okay while it was happening.” Mac looked down at his raw knuckles, “but now, I don’t know.” 

James considered his son and thought about what he was going to say next. Xarina climbed on the hood of the car beside James and Vienne looked away. James felt his daemon’s disappointment. Vienne always looked away. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s complicated.” 

“So you knew doing this wouldn’t do any good?” Mac didn’t shout, yelling would be too simple, James could see his son was way beyond the point where raising his voice would express what was inside him. He was so angry he had become calm, his rage had burst out then inverted and twisted until it was banked up hot and out of control inside him. “You knew bringing me here wouldn’t help but you did it anyway?” 

“No!” James laid a hand on Mac’s arm but he shook it off. “No, son, I wanted you to have a chance to finish what you started with the drug runners. I thought-”

“Was this about giving me a lesson?” Mac snarled, “If you wanted me to know that nothing would help me work through what I’m feeling you could have just told me that.” 

“That’s not what I was doing.” 

“You didn’t have to drag me out here to make your point.” Mac ignored James’ protests, “I just beat a man unconscious!” He shoved both of his hands into his hair, “why couldn’t you have just…?”

“No, son, listen I-” James didn’t know how everything had gone so wrong so quickly, his son’s rage was erupting in a direction he hadn’t expected it to and he didn’t know how to counter it, his intention hadn’t been to manipulate, “I wanted to help but I’m not good at that kind of thing,” he’d thought his plan was straightforward and unambiguous but it had backfired. James missed his wife with an ache more powerful than the background hum of grief he’d learned to live with, Ellen would have known what to say, she always knew what to say. “I wasn’t-” 

“Why does no one ever say anything that’s real?” Mac looked away, past the shop signs and street lights of the road they were in. “Why can’t we be like ordinary people - honest and real and safe?” Mac shoved himself off the car bonnet and stormed away leaving James stunned and speechless in his wake. 

  


The door opened and Archer came through it carrying a laptop. “Do you want to play a game?” 

“Seriously?” Riley rolled her eyes. “What are we going to play, Tic Tac Toe?” 

Archer put the laptop down on the table. “I thought you’d be ready for a challenge.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - where we fight our parents out in the streets, to find who's right and who's wrong – is from the song Benny and the Jets by Elton John. I have a head canon about James being a big Elton John fan (I don’t know why I think that but I do even though it has no relevance to anything) and it turns out that Tate Donovan is in Rocketman, the film about Elton John’s life.
> 
> Riley’s question about Archer wants to play Tic Tac Toe is a reference to the film War Games. It’s a 80s movie about a young hacker who accidentally hacks into Norad and almost starts a nuclear war. I watched it a couple of months ago and it’s a good little film but because it was made in the 80s the technology in it is hilariously outdated. I think Riley has probably seen it about 10 times and likes to list all of the ways she would have she could have done a better hack. :) 
> 
> James and the Giant Peach is a wonderful children’s book by Roald Dahl. In the story James is a bit of an inventor and I think Mac would have loved it when he was little.


	7. I am not alone dear loneliness, I forgot that I remembered this

“Don't you want something to do? Aren’t you bored?” Archer lay a hand on his chest with trite sincerity, “I know you must be bored.” 

Riley's shrug dripped with disdain. 

“I’m being kind here, Riley. I know you, I know you're bored," Archer said. 

“You know me?” Riley fought back a shudder. What did he know? And how? Had he been watching her as she went to work at the Phoenix and spent time with her friends, hiding and staring, and she hadn’t known? Had he seen her at vulnerable, intimate moments? Sera rubbed his nose against the tender skin behind her ear to ground her. 

“I know you, Riley – Artemis – I found you, I followed you,” Archer’s beetle daemon scurried out of a pocket of the long coat he always wore and up to hide under a lapel. “I know you better than any of your idiot think tank friends.” 

“You know me?” Riley pushed her paranoia aside, drawing rebelliousness around herself to shroud her fear. “Okay then, pop quiz: what’s my favourite colour?” 

Archer’s sigh was long suffering, the weary exhale of an adult dealing with a difficult child. 

“Give up? “ Riley asked, “It’s red. Sorry contestant number two, no points this round. Better luck next time.” 

“There really isn’t any need for this kind of unpleasantness.” Archer’s tone set Riley’s teeth on edge. It was so reasonable, so patronising. The wheedling intent behind it an insult. “If you’d rather I can take this away.” Archer picked up the laptop and turned to leave the room. 

So the next stage of his manipulation had begun. This was what the silent treatment has been leading to, Riley thought. Archer thought she worked for a think tank, he knew nothing about the Phoenix, with his mask and his smug games he wasn’t as good as he liked to think he was. She had the advantage. Riley clung to that knowledge, letting the hope and strength it carried fill her chest. 

“Wait," she called, she was going to play this game and see where it led. 

Archer put the laptop back down on the table and opened it, presenting it as if he’d offered Riley a velvet box with precious jewels inside. “I’ve hidden a prize in the coding of the city’s traffic system. You have thirty minutes to find it. I’ll be watching from my office computer.” Archer started to back out of the room. “Good luck – but if you’re as good as I hope you are you won’t need luck.” 

The door closed behind him. 

“If you’re as good as I hope you are?” Sera scoffed, blowing a ratty raspberry. “I hope you’ll get to punch him in the face. I really want him to get punched right in the middle of his big, smug face. Hard.” 

“The thought of doing that is one of the things that’s keeping me going.” Riley pulled out a chair and sat in front of the laptop. “Okay, let’s see what we can do with this.” 

  


Mac wouldn’t have chosen to go to the Phoenix medical bay. He didn’t need to. He was fine. A couple of bruises were no reason to see a doctor. He was _fine._

He didn’t want to be poked and prodded. He didn’t want to talk about the mission. He didn’t want to talk at all. But fate and the long arm of Matty Webber had intervened and before he could finish a sentence of his perfectly reasonable objection he found himself sat on an examination bed with his feet swaying gently as they dangled above the floor. His inability to put his feet on the ground heightened his feeling of being like a child, powerless and unable to contribute while decisions were made around him. A dark hunch of feathers perching on the cubicle’s curtain rail showed Vienne’s irritability. 

The Phoenix nurse tending Mac had seen agents in just about every emotional condition human beings were capable of: in pain, afraid, frustrated, relieved, furious, semi-conscious, grieving, loving. Mac was sure there must be very little that could disturb her and he selfishly hoped that if the day ever came when something did he would be far, far away. 

“You’re ribs are fine, you’ll have a couple of bruises and will be sore for a few days but there’s nothing to worry about,” the nurse said, her gecko daemon watching Mac inscrutably from her pocket, and indicated that he could but his sweater back on. 

Mac distracted himself from saying ‘I could have told you that’ by pulling his shirt over his head. 

“Hands please.” The nurse waved ‘give me’ at him and Mac dutifully held his hands out to have his knuckles cleaned with disinfectant. He winced at the sharp sting. “And you're done here,” the nurse told him when she finished. 

“Thank you.” Mac slipped off the bed to stand on the scrubbed linoleum floor. 

“Mac?” The nurse said, softer than she’d been while she’d been treating him, a friend now, not a professional, “We’re all thinking of Riley. If you need any help let us know.” 

“I will.” Touched, Mac discovered a grateful smile was easy to find. “Thanks.” 

The nurse left the room, passing Jack in the doorway as she walked through it. 

“They said you’d be in here,” Jack said, Larkin a wordless sentinel beside him. “And here you are. Are you okay?” 

“Yes.” Mac’s heart gave a hard thud. Which was stupid. It was Jack. “Just a few bruises. I’ll be fine, sore for a couple of days, you know, the usual.” Vienne hadn’t moved from her place above him but she’d straightened from her tense, angry pose. Mac felt anticipation quiver through her. She wanted to swoop down to Larkin but uncertainty stilled her. 

“Look, Hoss,” despite being a highly skilled, deadly agent who’d looked at life through the sight of a sniper rifle and from behind enemy lines in that moment Jack managed to resemble a six year old who’d been caught next to a broken window with a baseball in his hand. “I’m sorry I was...it might have looked like I was thinking that...when I first got here I...” Larkin nudged Jack with the side of her furry head. “I’m sorry I said stuff that made it sound like I blame you for what’s happened to Ri.” 

Vienne flew down for her perch to land beside Mac on the bed. “Oh.” Mac was stunned. Of all of the things he thought Jack might have said he wasn’t expecting that. 

“I’d been travelling non-stop and hadn’t eaten or slept for I don’t know how many hours. Bozer’s been shovelling food into me and looking at me with those big puppy eyes of his and he’s convinced me that I should talk to you. I know that things can go sideways before you can blink on a mission and when you’re off the clock and you’re not looking for trouble in the same way it’s even easier to be caught out, I get it man.” Jack buried a hand in Larkin’s fur. “It wasn’t your fault. No one thinks that.” The anxious little boy was gone, replaced by a perceptive friend who saw Mac clearly through the space between them. “You shouldn’t think that.” 

Mac had no answer. His response was too complicated and visceral to articulate. Vienne saved him from having to speak by flying down to stand in front of Larkin. The wolfhound sniffed at the crow and swiped at her with her pink tongue. 

“Come on, bro,” Jack waved at Mac with the second ‘come on’ gesture he’d seen in five minutes. 

Hesitant, Mac didn’t move. 

“This is me bringing you in for a hug,” Jack said, moving forward, “since you don’t seem to know what’s going on here.” 

Mac stepped into Jack’s arms. Jack Dalton didn’t do things by halves. When he sang karaoke his voice rang from the rafters, when he agreed to a dare he drank a whole bottle of hot sauce in three chugs and when he hugged he used his body to press everything he felt about a person into them so they’d know how important they were to him. If Mac was completely honest the hug hurt his ribs a little but he would never complain. 

“Are you okay?” Vienne asked. 

Larkin snorted through her nose. “I’m better than the moron who took Riley is going to be after we find them.” 

  


“You found it then?” 

Archer swirled his long coat as he walked into Riley’s prison with what Riley and Sera both thought was an unnecessary flourish. Riley felt her daemon roll his eyes. She considered frustrating Archer, making him wait with a ‘found what?’ but decided that he might interpret that as banter or, god forbid, think that she was flirting with him, so she gave him the briefest look and the flattest expression she could. 

“I found it. ‘It’ being a jpeg of a red rose hidden in the coding for the traffic cameras on Rodeo Drive. It was cute, if you like clichés.” 

“You did it and in good time too, I knew you would, well done.” 

Riley could have found Archer’s ‘prize’ with one hand tied behind her back. If he thought the challenge he’d set would test her it meant that his own skills as a hacker were good but were nowhere near her level. He really didn’t know who he was dealing with. 

“I watched you hack from my laptop,” Archer said, “Your skills are remarkable, when create together what we make will be extraordinary. Although,” he picked up the laptop from in front of Riley and tapped a few keys, “you did something I couldn’t follow while you were working, there were extra keystrokes, what were they for?” 

Riley shrugged. “I was hacking, I have my own style, you can’t expect to recognise everything I do.” 

“No.” Archer’s daemon crawled out from the back of his hood and sat by his throat. “You did something, what was it?” 

“I solved your puzzle.” 

“No,” Archer’s knuckles blanched as he tightened his grip on the laptop. “You’ve done something, what have you done – tell me.” 

“I did what you asked me to do,” Riley said, “I found your rose, it’s not my fault you don’t recognise my coding.” 

A beat of silence. The air crackled with barbed potential like the sky before a thunderstorm, like Riley’s childhood home when Elwood had been drinking. Riley pushed her chair back and stood, she wanted to be on her feet. “Every hacker works differently. There’s more than one way to access a system.” 

Archer started to pace the small room. Riley could hear heavy breaths huffing behind his mask. 

“And I’m not going to tell you how I did it, no hacker explains their tricks,” Riley continued, “if you knew me you’d know that.” 

“You weren’t just hacking the traffic cameras you were doing something else. What did you do?” Archer’s hands trembled, he was starting to lose control. Riley wanted to push him but she didn’t know how far to go. Her urge to defy her kidnapper set her hands trembling too, making him angry might not be safe but Riley couldn’t make herself kowtow to him. 

“I played your game.” 

“No,” Archer shook the head he kept hidden behind a mask. “No, you were doing something, tell me what it was.” 

“I’ve already told you.” 

“No!” The word was shouted. “What did you do?” 

“I found your stupid rose!” Riley snarled back, trying to match his anger with her own. She wouldn’t let him scare her. She wouldn’t. 

“You are going to tell me what you did.” 

“You wanted me to find your prize, I found it, what’s your problem?” 

“Tell me!” A crash boomed as Archer threw the laptop at the wall behind Riley and it shattered. 

“Did you expect to know everything I’d do?” Riley squared her feet and lifted her chin. Sera curled into her jacket pocket, waiting. Riley felt her daemon’s support through their connection reminding her that she wasn’t a scared little girl, she was Artemis37. “What did you expect? You wanted Artemis and that,” Riley pointed to the broken electronic pieces on the floor, “that was Artemis.” 

“You’re lying!” Archer screamed, “Don’t ever lie to me!” 

“You kidnapped me and locked me in a room and you think I owe you the truth?” Riley yelled back. “I don’t owe you anything. You deserve nothing from me!” 

Archer surged forward, raising his hand. Before she had time to block it a blow smashed into Riley’s jaw, throwing her off her feet and hard into the metal table beside her. 

  


Mac’s phone beeped. 

“It’s a text from Matty," he told Jack. He frowned as he read the message aloud. ‘Come to the War Room now please’. 

“Matty said please?” Jack leaned over to look at Mac’s phone. “I can’t remember the last time I heard her use that word. At least I can’t remember hearing her say it without using a sarcastic voice and a glare that would melt lead. Something’s happened.” 

Mac and Jack exchanged a look. Mac saw the cold terror he could feel crawling over him reflected in Jack’s face. 

They headed to the War Room in silence. Larkin walked beside Jack pressed against him with her tail tucked between her legs. Vienne swooped in jerking, directionless circles around Mac, first in front of him, then behind, searching for an exit, an answer, somewhere safe to land. 

The privacy glass was already activated when they reached the War Room and Bozer, Leanna and Desi were inside waiting for them. Mac pushed the door closed behind him and wordlessly called Vienne to sit on his shoulder. 

“I reached out to the LAPD to see if they’ve had any reports about the black car we’ve been looking for and they’ve just got back to me.” Matty took a deep breath, her cheetah daemon’s tail flickered. 

“Matty,” Bozer asked, “what is it? What did the police say?” 

“They said they found the car we’re looking for, Boze,” Matty said, “and there was a body inside it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - I am not alone dear loneliness, I forgot that I remembered this – is from the song Stranger Things Have Happened by the Foo Fighters


	8. In the washing of the water will you take it all away

No one moved. 

When Mac had been on top of a pylon facing the type of danger he most feared he’d slipped and only his harness and Desi's support had saved him from falling. The same helpless, tumbling swoop that had overwhelmed Mac then crashed through him. 

“No, Matty.”

“Dental records have been used to confirm that the body is Riley’s.”

“Dental records?” Mac didn’t want to know why the body had needed to be identified in that way but couldn’t stop himself asking.

Matty tensed her jaw, her tone professional out of respect despite the heartache behind her eyes. “The car had been set alight.”

Larkin threw her back her and howled. The drawn out cry of grief echoed through the Phoenix building stilling all who heard it. Those listening knew what it meant and they grieved too.

Mac couldn’t breathe. He’d promised Riley he’d get her back. He’d sworn to the picture in her apartment that he’d bring them all together again. He heard Matty talking, saying that they ought to go, that she would take care of everything and that they should take some time but Mac couldn’t move. He didn’t want to, that would make it real. To move would be to step forward into a new world that Riley was no longer in and go on without her.

Jack left the room in a violent burst of movement, his back muscles stiff and unreadable. Desi quickly followed him. Mac ached for Jack. He ached for Riley and for himself too. When Mac had destroyed the Scalpel all those months ago he thought he’d beaten his nightmare.

He’d been wrong.

The subject of his childhood bad dream had been turned to ash but his adult fear wasn’t one he could banish with flames. He hadn’t been able to protect one of the people he loved. He’d failed. Vienne fell bonelessly into Mac’s arms and for the first time in years he wished she hadn’t settled and could shift into a wolf so she could howl too.

Leanna was talking. Deciding. Organizing. Taking Mac’s hand. Pulling. And somehow – Mac was never sure how – she bundled him and Bozer into her car and drove away from the Phoenix. Bozer sat in the passenger seat and Mac sat behind him with all the car’s windows open and the wind gusting through it. Blasts of air rushed in Mac’s ears and he was glad of them. The wind cool on his face, wild in his hair, was something to feel. Without it he would only have his thoughts and the heavy pain of grief.

His phone rang – the display showed a call from his dad – and Mac answered without speaking.

“Son, I’ve heard about what’s happened. I’m sorry about Riley,” James said. “Listen, when your mom was diagnosed and then when she got really sick, I couldn’t,” a deep sigh crackled in the speaker of Mac’s phone, “I’d defused bombs and diverted international incidents but I couldn’t help my own wife. Your mom was the love of my life and I couldn’t save her.” Mac looked out at the blurred motion of cars and the reflected blue of the sky in their windows. He could hear music from other people’s radios, the grind of engines, the hum of tyres on asphalt. His father’s voice was in his ear and Riley was gone. She was gone. “I had to sit back without being able to do anything and that gnawed at me, every day, like a beast made of rage and helplessness, " James continued. “After we lost her I started taking bigger and more dangerous missions thinking that if I did enough, did things that were huge and audacious, I could make up for it. What’s death to someone who can stop a nuclear meltdown with a paperclip? I thought that if I saved the world enough times I’d somehow be able to save her too.”

Vienne’s eyes were closed. She usually moved away from Mac when James called him, her irritation expressed with a stony silence, but she stayed on Mac’s lap, her slight weight an anchor of familiarity.

“What I’m saying is hold steady,” James said, “don’t go reversing towards any armed men, okay? Be safe, son.”

“Yeah” Mac said in a voice that wasn’t his. “I am. I will.”

“Where are you?”

Mac looked up. He saw sand, surfboards and volleyball players. He smelled salt and heard crashing waves and the laughter of friends hanging out together around a picnic bench.

“I’m at the beach, " he said. He looked over at Leanna who was parking her car underneath the shade of a palm tree. “I’m at the beach?”

“You are.” Leanna turned to Mac. “Come on.”

Mac pressed the red button on his phone to end the call and climbed out of the car following Bozer and Leanna. Leanna took one of his and Bozer’s hands and led them towards the ocean. Golden sand crunched underfoot and Mac felt the itch of grains of it finding their way into his shoes and between his toes.

“Why are we at the beach?” Mac asked when they stopped a few strides away from the water’s edge.

“Because,” Leanna answered, tipping her face to the sun, “being here is better than staying at the Phoenix surrounded by all the nothing you can do.”

Computer readouts, scans, databases. Facial recognition points. Advanced tracking training. Years of expertise. None of it had brought Riley back. When it had mattered all that had meant nothing.

“And, the sea is something isn’t it?” Leanna said, “It’s where all life came from and it’s new every time you see it. They say that you never step into the same river twice don’t they? I think it’s the same with the ocean.”

Seagulls wheeled and shrieked overhead. Mac looked up and saw a flock riding an updraft with their wings outstretched. There seemed to be no purpose to the way they swooped and hovered. They weren’t searching for food or for a mate, they were just revelling in the sensation of the wind holding them. Vienne left Mac’s shoulder, flew upwards and screamed with them.

Bozer and Leanna moved forward to stand where white foam edged waves lapped at the sand. They curled into each other, arms tightening, Leanna’s finch daemon tucked against Bozer’s collarbone and Bozer’s red squirrel Ettie nuzzled Leanna’s jaw.

Mac turned away.

He watched the ocean ebb and flow and felt his daemon’s need to _go_. Vienne wanted to rise higher and higher until she vanished. Mac wanted to disappear too. He could walk into the ocean and let the tide surround him. It would take his weight and carry him away.

Just four steps would take him into the water. He could let it cover him, cold against his skin, and maybe the chill would help soothe his pain. Mac had lost people before - his mom, his grandfather, Pena - so he could have expected that the existence of old griefs would help dampen the pain of a new one. But it didn’t work that way. The scar tissue of old bereavements didn’t dull the pain of a new wound, each person he loved was held in a different place in his heart so each loss cut somewhere new inside him and the pain was fresh, clear and untempered.

Vienne left the seagulls to swoop over the waves in front of Mac, she was so close to the water that her feathers grew damp as the tide splashed beneath her. It would only take a few more steps and Mac could submerge them both somewhere calm and deep where his pain and failure could be taken away. If all life began in the oceans eons ago then the sea was where he’d originally come from. It was home. It could lift him up and wash him away to somewhere he could find peace. Because there was none inside him.

  


Desi found Jack in the armoury loading a rifle. 

She’d lost him just after he’d walked out of the War Room and when she went to find him her daemon looked in the gym while she checked the parking lot. The car he was using was still there and Desi stood for a moment and considered everything she knew about Jack before she went searching again – if he hadn’t left the Phoenix where would he be? She and Ash both headed to the armoury.

“Jack?” Desi's daemon padded over to where Jack’s was lying like a broken thing at his feet. Larkin’s limbs were splayed in an aspect of exhausted despair and Ash lay down next to the wolf hound and nuzzled her.

Jack nodded sharply. His face was stony, his jaw tight and eyes narrowed. Anyone who wasn’t his friend would have seen a soldier focused on the battle ahead. Desi knew better.

Jack put the loaded rifle down and picked up a hunting knife lying beside it, pulling the weapon out of it’s scabbard and checked the edge of it’s wicked looking blade before covering it again with a snap.

“Jack, I’m so sorry.”

“Des,” Jack dropped the knife and picked up another gun, “I can’t.”

Ash purred and licked the top of Larkin’s head.

“I need to bring the person who took Riley down.” Jack continued, not looking at Desi, “I can’t think about anything else, not yet.”

Larkin whined and rubbed her muzzle into Ash’s neck.

“She was my little girl,” Jack faltered, he put down his gun and rested his palms flat on the table in front of him, his head hanging down, his shoulders tense as he fought the roar of anguish inside him, “and I need to get justice for her.”

Desi saw a man in pain, deep, gut wrenching pain, who needed a place to put his hurt or he would crumble. “I understand,” she walked up to the table and stood opposite Jack, reaching for one of the weapons he had waiting there. “Let me help you.”

  


Riley shivered. She pulled her blanket closer around her shoulders, wincing at the pain the movement caused. 

“You’re alright,” Sera whispered in her ear. “We're alright.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - in the washing of the water will you take it all away – is from the song Washing of the Water by Peter Gabriel
> 
> The idea of not stepping into the same river twice comes from a quote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ― Heraclitus
> 
> The Scalpel mentioned in is a reference to the Anbaric Scalpel, something that's based on the Silver Guillotine used to cut children away from their daemons in the His Dark Materials novels that I put into the story that comes before this one.


	9. I’m a new day rising, I’m a brand new sky to hang the stars upon tonight

The morgue wasn’t cold. People thought that morgues were cold, dark places where the biting smell of medical cleanliness lingered in the air but Matty had never found that to be true. They were sombre, it would inappropriate for them not to be, but they didn’t have the stomach tightening ambience everyone expected. Still, no matter how friendly the staff and carefully neutral the décor Matty always found a chill crept over her whenever she was visiting a morgue. It was like grief and sorrow had permeated the walls then leaked slowly out, heavy and frosty, into the rooms and under the skin of the people unlucky enough to be there. She saw the Phoenix tech following in her wake shudder. 

“We won’t be here long,” Matty gave the kid a tight smile. The kid. Listen to her, she was getting old. Or at least she felt old. Losing agents was never easy, losing family was much worse. Losing both - on her watch - was unacceptable. She wasn’t prepared to tolerate it, especially since a suspicion had begun to form in her mind. Beside Matty her cheetah daemon swished his tail in a brief ripple of emotion before their stoic masks were quickly replaced. 

Her phone rang in her pocket and she looked at the display, it was Mac. 

“Matty, I’ve been thinking…”

“I know,” Matty interrupted, “whoever has Riley is a hacker, they could easily have got into Riley’s dental records and doctored them. I’m at the morgue now to get a DNA sample from the body in the car and bring it back to the Phoenix where we can test it against our records.” 

  


“What did Matty say?” Vienne asked. 

Mac had been up for most of the night. Pacing. Thinking. Thinking hard and trying to decide if his theory was based on logic or hope. 

“She’s had the same thought as us. She’s at the morgue getting a DNA sample now.” 

Mac and his daemon had finally passed out from exhaustion sat on the moonlit deck and had woken stiff and disorientated. Mac had blinked at the bright daylight pressing against his eyes and reached for his phone. He didn’t think about waiting for a more reasonable hour to call Matty. She’d want to know, she needed to know. If Riley was still out there they needed to find her. 

Mac felt something in his neck crack as he stretched. “We should go, Matty is bringing a DNA sample back to the Phoenix and we need to be there.” 

“You should have a shower before we go to the Phoenix.” Vienne hopped in front of Mac. “You’re sore from sleeping out here and I’m pretty sure you still have sand between your toes from the beach.” 

“Vi, I’m fine.” 

“It will only take five minutes and will help wake you up, come on.” 

Mac knew his daemon was right, she could feel his urgency but she could feel his weariness too and the way he felt gritty and stale inside and out. He tried to remember to listen to her when it came to their well-being, she could often see into the heart of what was best for them while he was caught up in threads of thought and abstract concepts. She could be their emotional centre, knowing how to keep them grounded. True, she could also be his childlike, irrational side that didn’t want to wait, was scared of the dark and didn’t understand that sometimes things just weren’t fair. Finding the balance between these sides of himself was a challenge Mac didn’t think he’d ever master. It was the reality of having a daemon who shared your life, gave you support and stood face to face with you declaring things you didn’t want to admit. 

“All right, a shower then the Phoenix.” Mac stood with an arthritic grunt. LA sprawled in front of him, most of it beginning a new day, some of it ending a long night, and if he was right Riley was out there somewhere waiting for them to find her. 

  


Jack had slept on Desi’s floor. 

She’d offered him her sofa but he was on a combat mission. Soldiers don’t sleep on cushions during combat missions. They slept on hard terrain, stones in their back, boots on their feet and one eye open. 

Soft mattresses and pillows were for later. So was comfort. When the mission was complete. That’s when he would feel, would grieve. After he’d found justice for his little girl. 

Jack’s daemon was a solid warmth against him. He rolled onto his back and Larkin licked his hand when she felt him stirring. It could be inconvenient to have a daemon as large as his and having a dog for a daemon sometimes gave people the impression that he was a dumb rule follower but Jack loved Larkin. He thought her shape was perfect – everyone felt that way about their daemon – and he was proud of how strong, smart and caring she was. Jack hadn’t been surprised when he’d found out that Riley’s daemon had settled as a rat. Sera was intelligent, sneaky and affectionate to those who appreciated him. During their time apart when she was younger Jack had wondered if Riley’s daemon would settle into the form of a cat like her mother’s. Diane’s daemon had beautiful grey fur and used to like to lay next to the warmth of Larkin’s belly when she and Jack were dating. He still remembered how he’d felt the evening he’d realised that Sera had shifted into a cat to settle beside her mom’s with the three of them curled up like a little family. It had been one of the happiest moments in Jack’s life. He pushed down the emotion rising in his throat. He was on a combat mission, he needed to focus. 

“Jack!” 

Desi ran into the room with her phone in her hand. 

“Mac’s called.” 

  


Everyone arrived at the Phoenix lab at the same time, tired, heart sore but determined and hopeful. 

“Take this.” Matty handed the DNA sample kit to Bozer. “I wanted to run this here where we can be sure it’s secure.” 

“So this holds the key?” Bozer held the sample up. “This will tell us if Riley is really alive?” 

“It will. That’s why I brought it here, there can be no mistakes.” 

“I’m on it.” Bozer, dressed for the occasion in a white lab coat, entered the sample into the Phoenix’s system. “Now we wait.” 

Bozer turned his laptop on. After he typed his password into the system the screen flashed red and a single words started scrolling across the screen. Archer. 

“Archer.” From his place in the corner Sparky blinked into life, “Archer,” he repeated. “Archer. Archer.” 

“I didn’t touch anything, I swear!” Eyes wide, hands held up, Bozer launched himself backwards away from the laptop. 

“What is this?” Matty asked, “Mac? 

“I don’t know, " Mac said, looking wildly around the room. “This isn’t anything to do with me.” 

“Archer," Sparky said again. “Archer. Archer. Archer.” 

“Who the hell is Archer?” Jack demanded. 

“Have we been hacked?” Matty asked. 

“We have,” Jack jabbed a finger at the laptop, “by Riley. She would know how to get past the wall of fire we have all around our server thingy.” 

“Riley did help set up the firewalls,” Bozer said. “Although this isn’t really her style, she’s way more subtle. She’s more sneak attacks and less annoying shouting,” he nodded at Sparky. 

“Maybe she didn’t have a lot of time,” Desi said. “Maybe she wanted to make sure her message got heard,” she tapped Sparky with a knuckle. “You know, if you wanted I could shut him up.” 

“No!” Bozer snapped, “No breaking the multi-million dollar project! I have an idea for something that could stop this that doesn’t involve going all ‘Hulk smash’ on the hardware.” Bozer pulled his laptop to him. Tentatively, he reached forward with two fingers and typed ‘Riley’ into his keyboard. The red screen vanished. Sparky slumped into silence. 

“It’s her!” Jack yelled. “I knew it!” 

“I want it to be her too Jack but let’s be cautious,” Matty urged. “We need to be sure, false hope helps no one.” 

“I am sure, Matilda,” Jack said. “That was Ri! Come on, you know it was.” 

Bozer’s laptop chirped. “The DNA results are done.” Bozer tapped a few keys as the team gathered around him. Mac held his breath as his daemon’s claws tightened on his shoulder. _Please_ he thought, _please._ The results appears on the screen, a collection of data points and a graph that swam in front of his eyes. Mac blinked and shook his head to clear it. He looked again. 

“There’s no match,” Mac said. “That wasn’t Riley’s DNA. The body isn’t Riley, it’s not her.” 

Mac had once been stood beside an Army general when he’d learned that his son’s unit had returned safely from a dangerous op. The team the general’s son belonged to had been tasked with rescuing a hostage from behind enemy lines in a place that was a no go area for everyone but the very brave or the extremely foolhardy. The general had been stoic as the mission unfolded on the screens in the command centre, only the occasional twitch of the side of his mouth gave away that he had any emotional investment in what was happening. He kept up his hard-faced appearance until news came through that the whole team were safely back at base. Then the general had crumpled, sagging into the seat behind him like the stubborn grit keeping him standing had melted away. Relief could feel like having your legs swept out from under you. It could be all encompassing and devastating and Mac had to lock his knees to stay upright. He and Bozer fell into a tight hug, Bozer squeezed Mac then moved onto hug Matty while Mac pulled Desi into his arms. 

Jack pressed his hands to his face, sobbing out a breath into his palms. “Thank you, God, thank you.” 

Larkin danced on the spot, woofing delightedly and Vienne flew to land by her feet. The wolf hound daemon dropped to lay on the floor in front of the crow, tongue hanging out, tail turning in joyous circles. The other daemons jumped on of each other, nuzzled each playfully and Mac could feel Vienne’s joy at being surrounded by fur and warmth and happiness. 

“So now we need to find her,” Jack announced. “Come on team, it’s time to shake a tail feather, let’s get this.” He clapped his hands together like a teacher urging on a class of reluctant first graders. 

“We’ll see if we can trace the hack and start looking into ‘Archer’” Matty said, reassuringly no nonsense. “You three,” she pointed to Mac, Jack and Desi, “go to where they found the car and see what you can find, clues, witnesses, anything.” 

Jack saluted. 

“Yes, boss.” Mac said. They’d been given a second chance, maybe now the odds were turning in their favour. 

  


Riley pushed herself up until she was sitting, grimacing at the movement. She couldn’t find a comfortable position, each breath jarred her aching ribs and the bruise on her jaw throbbed. Her daemon mewed and rubbed himself against her throat. “It’s just some bruises,” he whispered, “we’ve had worse on missions, you’ll feel better soon.” 

“Yeah,” Riley patted the mattress where it hid the items she’d collected which now included two sharp pieces of plastic from the remains of the smashed laptop. 

The door to her cell opened and Riley pulled herself to standing, her feet braced on the floor. 

“I wondered if you wanted to play another game.” Archer closed the door behind him and stood before Riley. He was wearing his usual garb of a long hooded coat with black fabric covering his face and Riley hated him with everything in her. She wanted to rip the mask away and spit in his face, scream at him, laugh at him, pummel him to the ground and shout that she wasn’t afraid of him and that he was nothing to her. The urge made her shiver but she reigned it in, she was in no fit state for a physical fight. 

“Are you going to sulk if I don’t play by your rules again?” Riley asked. 

Archer interlaced his fingers in front of him like a wise professor answering a naive student. Riley hated him a little bit more. “I’m sorry about our misunderstanding,” he said. 

“Our misunderstanding?” 

“There were faults on both sides, you weren’t open with me but I could have handled the situation better.” 

“So you’re saying that you losing your temper was my fault?” 

“Now, I didn’t say that.” Archer spread his hands wide, a benevolent benefactor now, “You’re making me the bad guy, but if you think about it if you had just...” 

“Done exactly what you’d told me to do everything would have been okay?” Riley interrupted. She couldn’t see his daemon but the stag beetle was almost impossible to read at the best of times, still, even without the benefit of seeing his daemon she knew exactly what role Archer was taking with her. 

“Communicated more,” Archer corrected, “I think we can agree to move past this and things will be better in the future.” 

“What, no flowers? No tearful apologies?” Riley made no attempt to soften the contempt in her voice, “No promises to never do it again? Where’s the _‘I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean it, you know how I get’?”_

“Riley, don’t you think you’re overreacting? What happened wasn’t as bad as you think, once you’ve calmed down I’m sure you’ll understand. “

“Come on,” Riley sneered “That’s not the way this plays out, not at first, I know you know how the scenario between you and a woman you’ve just hit goes.” 

“I don’t think I like what you are implying.” 

“You don’t have to like it for it to be true.” 

“I’m a gentleman,” Archer said, “I’ve been a gentleman.” 

“You do know how crazy that sounds right now don’t you? I mean…” Riley gestured to her bruised face, Archer’s mask and the prison he was keeping her in. 

Archer dipped his head and Riley knew beneath his mask his lip was twitching into a snarl. “This is all a means to an end,” his voice was rough with the edge of a growl, “you still won’t try to understand.” 

“No I won’t,” Riley said, “Look at me, why should I?” 

They glared at each other, Riley meeting the blank space where she knew Archer’s eyes were without flinching. 

“I don’t think you’re in the right mood at the moment,” Archer said as he straightened, his bunched shoulders and clenched hands betraying his frustration. “You’re upset and it’s making you irrational. We’ll try this again later when you’re in a better frame of mind.” He turned on his heel and left. 

“Is this the right way to play this?” Sera asked when the door thudded shut. 

“I don’t know,” Riley said, slowly lowering herself down to sit back on the mattress, her legs weak beneath her. “But what other play is there?” 

“We could be docile, go along with him and bide our time.” 

“That comes next. When he thinks he’s starting to change my mind and convince me he’s a nice guy he might get over confident and slip up. Until that happens we’ll have to use every chance we get to leave bread crumbs for the others to follow.” 

“Do you think they got your message?” 

“I hope so.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - I’m a new day rising, I’m a brand new sky to hang the stars upon tonight – is from the song Times Like These by the Foo Fighters


	10. With the birds I share this lonely view

The abandoned lot the car had been left in looked like every other abandoned lot in the city, possibly in the whole United States. It was a void of grey tones and broken glass with flashes of dark green where weeds had forced their way through cracked concrete. The neighbourhood it was in was run down with boarded up buildings and shuttered shop fronts. The space would leave you with the a feeling that a blanket of cold, empty disappointment was lying across your shoulders even when the sun was directly overhead. Whoever had taken Riley – Archer – couldn’t have chosen a more non-descript and obvious place to burn his car. Mac thought that if he’d been asked to list the top five locations most likely to have a burnt out car dumped in them the lot would have been one of the first places he would have said. It was like Archer had watched hours of procedural crime shows and had taken inspiration from the ever changing parade of Bad Guys of the Week. This Archer was intelligent but not inventive, he relied on clichés and thought very much inside the box. That was good, they could use that. 

Mac, Desi and Jack climbed out of their car on high alert, watching and listening for anything that could be a clue or a sign. 

“Here.” Jack tapped his foot against scorch marks on the road left by burning tyres. The black marks and small twists of charred metal were the only signs that anything had ever been there. “It’s not a busy neighbourhood is it?” Jack looked around. The street was empty, the only movement a dark shape drifting across the road in the distance that was either an empty can being pushed along by the breeze or a rat. Mac decided that he didn’t need to know which it was. 

“Who do you think the body in the car really was?” Vienne nudged a piece of blackened steel with her beak. 

“I don’t know, " Jack said, “She could have been a Jane Doe from a morgue or a homeless person who passed away on the street. Hopefully we can find out who she was so we can get her back to her family with her real name.” 

Desi scanned the horizon. “Whoever Archer is he’s put a lot of time and effort into coordinating this whole thing. Finding a body, hacking the morgue. He’s planned this thoroughly.” 

“He’s arrogant though and being over confident has made him sloppy,” Jack said. “And when we find him I’m going to put a lot of time and effort into punching him in the face.” 

Desi’s daemon Ash stiffened, “Over there,” he said in a low rumble, narrowed eyes focused on the building opposite the team. “I saw someone in the window.” 

“Let’s check it out.” Jack’s hand twitched by the gun he had strapped to his hip. 

  


As they made their way over to the building with broken windows and a rusting door Mac marvelled at the strangeness of having both Jack and Desi with him. They’d had the same kind of training and how they checked the area as they walked towards the building was similarly precise but the way they both moved was quintessentially them. Jack was focused and clipped, Desi lithe and flowing. They were alike but completely different at the same time and Mac felt disorientated. Seeing them together was like seeing his teachers out of school when he was a child, unexpected and accompanied by the feeling that something was out of place. The mental gymnastics involved in processing having them all side by side was making his head spin. 

“You okay there, hoss?” Jack asked as if he’d been reading Mac’s confused thoughts. 

“Yeah. It’s just that it’s weird having the two of you here.” 

Desi grinned. “Is it like two worlds colliding?” 

“Like someone just beamed a T Rex onto the Death Star?” Jack added. 

“A little.” Mac nodded. “Except with less teeth.”

Jack slowed and held up his hand to call for silence, peering through a window into the building Ash had seen movement in. “Okay,” he said. They filed inside. 

Their footsteps echoed. The room was a wide open space that had probably used for production or storage before it was left to decay. A drip, drip, drip of water echoed from somewhere deep in the building and Mac could smell rot, staleness and wood smoke in the air. Over in a corner next to where a fire was burning in a metal oil can sat a homeless woman and her heron daemon. The woman was swathed in layers of clothes, Mac could see what looked like a denim jacket covering a faded purple hoodie and a knitted vest. The woman looked older but it was impossible to guess her age under her shapeless clothes and shadowed face. She eyed the team suspiciously as they walked towards her. 

“I don’t know anything,” the old lady called as they drew close, “I don’t have anything and I didn’t see anything so there’s no need to take me to the station and ask me questions.” 

“We’re not the police,” Desi told her. 

“Good for you. I still don’t know anything.” The woman’s daemon was huddled at her side, it’s hunched up wings made it look just like a sulking teenager. 

“Ma’am,” Jack said. Ash padded over to the heron daemon sniffing at it curiously, his whiskers twitching. 

“Ma’am!” the homeless lady cackled, rocking backwards and forwards, “No one’s called me ma’am for a very long time! You’re cute, Tex, I like you.” 

“A couple of nights ago a car was set alight just outside, if you can tell us anything you know about that we’d be grateful,” Mac said.

The old lady sniffed. “I told you, I didn’t see nothing.” 

“Ma’am,” Jack said, “my daughters missing and we think that the person who took her is the one who burned that car. Anything you saw could help us find her.” 

“I’m not sure if that’s my problem.” The homeless lady shrugged. 

“She’s been missing for days,” Mac said. “Please anything you saw, even something tiny, could help us find her.” 

“Lots of people go missing,” the homeless lady rearranged the folds of her skirt, “some of them don’t want to be found.” 

“Our friend does,” Desi said. 

“My daughter is called Riley,” Jack stepped forwards, “and her family are scared for her.” 

“Well,” the homeless lady looked down and pressed her lips into a thin line and Mac could tell that that she was wavering, “like I said, I don’t go anywhere to see anything, I don’t move from this spot unless I have to.” 

Ash blinked at the heron daemon slowly, he purred deep in his chest. “But you do know something.” Desi said. 

“Do not.” 

“I think you do.” 

“How could I, hmm?” 

Desi gave a knowing smile. “You tell me.” 

The homeless woman met Desi’s smile with a challenging one, mischief dancing in her eyes. A moment of loaded stillness passed then the heron daemon unfurled itself from it’s crouch and took to it’s wings. It soared towards the beams of the high ceiling above it, the down draft from it’s large wings making the fire flare, and flew away from it’s human. Ash jumped to his feet and ran after it, jumping over a pile of rubble to join the heron at the other side of the building – way beyond the reach of a typical human/daemon connection. 

Mac felt Vienne shudder. 

The homeless woman whooped and clapped her hands. “I had a feeling about you. After you’ve been around as long as I have you can spot the people who can separate from their daemons. There was something about the way you held you head,” she grinned, delighted. “I haven’t met anyone like me for a long time.” At the other end of the room the heron and the puma were chasing each other in messy spirals that filled the space with the sound of wingbeats and Ash’s amused huffs, the old lady’s smile softened. “Jax was out there when that car you’re asking about was burned,” she said, nodding out of the window. “He saw a man park the car, set it on fire then head down the street to the subway station.” 

Mac straightened. “What did the man look like?” 

“He was average looking, white, medium height, baseball cap.” 

“What time was this?” 

“A little after sunset.” 

Mac, Jack and Desi exchanged looks. A lead. A good solid lead with details they could chase. 

“We need to call Matty, she can check the station’s CCTV footage,” Mac said. 

The homeless lady’s daemon flew back to her and resumed it’s slumped stance at her side. “Did that help?” 

“Yes, " Jack answered. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Do you need anything?” Jack asked. “We could-“

“Pffft!” An impatient wave of an age spotted hand dismissed Jack’s question. “I’m fine. You just need to focus on finding your girl.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m always sure. Go on, get moving.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Good luck, Tex.” 

The team stepped back out into the daylight. “What do you think happened that let her and her daemon separate?” Jack asked as they left the homeless woman’s earshot. 

“There are a few ways to do it,” Desi said. “It’s not really polite to ask, it’s personal.” 

Jack looked back at his shoulder at the huddled figures as the team started to make their way towards their car. 

“So sunset has been at about eight thirty this week so our guy must have been here around then,” Desi said. “Matty can check the footage for anyone matching that description and cross reference any matches with the intel she’s found on this Archer guy.” 

Mac’s phone rang. 

Desi raised her eyebrows. “Matty really does have the best timing in the world, it’s freaky.” 

“Mac,” Matty’s voice came through on the speaker phone. “We’ve found a hacker who calls himself ArcherA1 on the dark web.” 

“What do you know about him?” Jack asked. 

“We’ve found posts of his on some hacker’s message boards. There’s aren’t a lot of details in his posts, they’re mostly showboating and mansplaining. He’s hidden his digital tracks well but he’s not as good as our techs. We’re tracing his personal details now.” 

Mac told Matty about the heron daemon and what he’d seen. “Can you check the cameras in the subway station?” he said. “Maybe we can match a photo of this Archer with a picture of someone getting on the train.” 

“On it. I’ve got an address, I’m sending it to you now.” 

Jack nodded as Mac’s phone chimed. “Let’s go and have a chat with him.” 

  


Riley ached. Her jaw still hurt and the pain in her ribs radiated out with each breath. She couldn’t get comfortable, every position she tried felt like it jarred her bruises. 

Sera nuzzled at the tender skin at her jaw, “You’ll be okay,” he crooned, “just try to rest.” 

The door to her room silently started to open and Riley’s eyes fell closed in tired resignation, she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to deal with the games, the back and forth, managing her reactions and trying to stay one step ahead of Archer. 

Archer walked in, Riley didn’t stand. 

Archer studied Riley from under his mask, imperious and confident. He tipped his head to the side in inquiry, “You don’t look well, Riley.” 

“A lack of vitamin D is bad for you and I haven’t seen daylight for days.” Any attempt at keeping track of the hours that had passed since she’d been taken had failed and Riley didn’t know how long she’d been locked in her prison. The green walls, the generic furniture and the poster on the wall pressed in on her. The trees and sky in the picture that were supposed give a view that comforted mocked her with everything she was missing. She hadn’t torn it down, not yet but the urge itched inside her. “Also, having bruised ribs hasn’t exactly put a spring in my step.” 

Archer hummed and sat down on a chair by the desk. “I’ve been wondering if you’re ready to be reasonable.” 

“Reasonable?” 

“I just want us to be friends.” Archer’s voice was so gentle and earnest that Riley’s hate for him burned inside her. “We have the same skills, the same interests. Think about it, there’s so much we could talk about if you’d just relax a little. Don’t you want someone to talk to?” 

“I want a lot of things.” Riley pulled the blanket around her shoulders a little tighter, “I’ve wanted a pony since I was seven years old. I wanted to meet Justin Timberlake when I was thirteen and I kind of still do. I want a cinnamon roll with crunchy sugary stuff on top from a bakery I found the last time I was in New York. ” 

“I can’t really help you with those things,” Archer said around a breathy, insincere laugh, “if you want to talk,” he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, “if you ever want to talk, about anything, I’m here for you.” 

And here it was. The sweet after the sour; the comfort after the hurt. Archer thought she was vulnerable and was relying on that to make her susceptible to him. He would be kind and gentle. He would listen and commiserate in the belief that she’d let him in and he could chip and chip away at her confidence until it was damaged enough to need him to steady her. Riley had been working towards this but now the time had arrived for her to manipulate his manipulation she was sore and weary. She sighed under the thin comfort of her blanket. 

“What do you want to talk about?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - with the birds I share this lonely view – is from the song Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.


	11. I believe in peace, bitch

“We're at the address, Matty,” Mac said into his comms. The house they were outside was an ordinary looking one on a block where ordinary people lived ordinary lives. Mac could see mailboxes, driveways and a trampoline. Ordinary. But the home he was waiting outside belonged to the man who took Riley. 

“Good,” Matty replied. “We've checked the footage from the cameras in the subway station and the man who lives at the address you’re at was seen getting onto a subway at the time the homeless lady gave you. It looks like this could be our guy.” 

“Then let’s go and say howdy.” Jack’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel. 

“Jack,” Matty cautioned. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that we need to act with care. It’s possible that he isn’t keeping Riley in his home. We don’t want to go in there all guns blazing and let him know we’re onto him, that could risk Riley’s safety. Do you copy?” 

“What would you like me to do Matty?” Jack said, “Knock on this psycho’s door and ask him if he would pretty please with sugar on top tell us where Riley is if that isn’t too inconvenient?” 

“Dalton, I said do you copy?” 

“We copy, Matty,” Desi said. “We'll move softly softly, don’t worry.” 

Mac, Desi and Jack climbed out of their car and into the quiet suburban street. 

Mac looked around him feeling sure that if he had asked “Archer’s” neighbours about him they would have said that he was a nice enough young man. They probably would tell Mac that he seemed friendly, he always said ‘good morning’ on his way to work and he bought Girl Scout cookies every year. They would have said that they didn’t really know him but they didn’t really know any of their neighbours - who does? To be fair, Mac thought, if one of the people on his block kidnapped a young woman and kept her locked up he might not have known either - he worked long hours. 

The monsters in the world didn’t have fangs, scales or glowing red eyes. They looked like everyone else. They smiled, drank overpriced coffee and gave money to charity. You couldn’t tell they were dangerous by looking at them. Their sickness, brokenness and bile lay inside them, hidden and unknown until it was unleashed. Mac wondered if he should worry about how he wasn't surprised by the fact that the person who took Riley lived in a perfectly ordinary suburban house with a neatly cut lawn. Did that mean he’d become cynical and detached? If he could accept that the presence of cruelty had gone unnoticed in a neighbourhood of perfectly nice people did that mean he’d lost his faith in humanity? Maybe he was cynical, or maybe he was just wise enough to understand that most people don’t see evil because they don’t have enough inside them to recognise it, and an ordinary person’s didn’t witness enough acts of inhumanity to know when they were near someone capable of one. If the Scooby Gang could stay cheerful after finding out that every ghoul they chased was actually an ordinary person in a mask he could too. Mac rolled his eyes at himself. _The Scooby Gang?_ He needed to sleep. 

Mac picked the lock on the front door and disabled the alarm system with his Swiss Army Knife in less than two minutes then he, Desi and Jack started searching the house. 

“Keep the comms hot people but quiet like,” Jack said as he turned a corner and vanished from Mac’s sight. “Softly softly remember.” 

“Copy.” Mac climbed the stairs, carefully trying to avoid any creaking steps. Softly softly – he could do that. He moved like that every time he approached a bomb he’d been tasked to defuse. He had no intention of tackling the mission like he was reversing at eighty miles an hour towards an armed enemy. He would remain in control. Riley needed him to be. 

All the master bedroom and the bathroom revealed was evidence that Archer favoured flat pack furniture, chrome fittings and magazines that Mac was not prepared to handle but something about the spare room made the back of his neck tingle. A cheap plastic clothes rail with hangers on it had been pushed against a wall that, now that Mac looked closely, was different from the others. The paint covering the wall was newer than that on the rest of the room and the dimensions of the space felt wrong, it was too small. Mac pulled the clothes rail aside and saw a keyhole. 

“Riley?” Mac hissed as loud as he dared. “Riles, are you there?” 

“Mac?” Riley’s voice was muffled but unmistakable from the other side of the wall. “Mac!” 

  


Riley’s ‘talk’ with Archer had exhausted her and she’d begun to doze as soon as he left the room. Their conversation had been short but she’d been calm and receptive. She’d smiled, tipped her head to one side and laughed at his jokes, pleasing her captor. He’d walked away from her with a noticeable spring in his step. 

“He thinks he’s winning,” Sera had whispered. 

“Good,” Riley had told her rat daemon. “Let him think that.” She’d been drifting in and out of sleep ever since Archer had left her. Her side ached and her jaw was still tender and the pain of them was draining. 

The sound of Mac’s voice cut through the fug enveloping her. 

“Riles, are you there?” 

“Mac?” Heart pounding, Riley scrambled to the door. “Mac? 

“I’m going to open the door, hang on.” 

Riley heard Mac start to pick the lock. She heard the click of the first tumbler. Then a second click, a third, another. The door jerked and opened minutely, a sliver of it pushing proud of the wall then a furious yell -

“Who the hell are you?” 

Riley heard a thud of impact and a cry of pain. 

“Mac!” Riley could hear fighting in the room beyond. Grunts, crashes and a roar of rage were muffled but indistinguishably a vicious battle. 

“Mac!” Riley shouted. She clawed at the thin slice of door with her nails. “Come on!” The noises of the fight happening outside her prison grew fainter, as if it was moving away. Riley couldn’t get enough leverage to pull the door open. Mac was trained in hand to hand combat, he knew how to defend himself, but Archer would have the element of surprise and rage on his side. “Sera, I can’t open the door!” 

“Here.” Sera was dragging one of the pieces of plastic from the broken laptop between his teeth. “Try this.” 

Riley slid the shard of plastic into the space between the door and the wall and levered it back and forth over and over until the door opened far enough to let her grip it and pull it wide. 

She’d expected that she was being kept in a storage unit or an industrial complex and had assumed that when she broke out she would find herself in stark, metallic surroundings or somewhere made of concrete with oil stains on the floor. She hadn’t expected magnolia walls and a bookshelf full of old board games. She was in a spare room. She’d been held hostage behind the fake wall of the room where her captor kept his dumb bells and an old computer tower. The sudden reality of domestic normality in the place she’d been imprisoned was disorientating and Riley’s footsteps faltered as vertigo hit her. She grabbed hold of the doorframe to steady herself against a wave of nausea and insulted fury. 

“We need to move,” Sera said from inside Riley’s pocket. Riley could hear Mac and Archer fighting in the hallway outside the room. Archer was screaming incoherently between the sounds of landing blows and breaking glass. She tried to move but couldn’t make herself let go of the wooden frame that her tight grip had biting into her palm. Mac needed help. Riley had long suspected that Archer was armed when he came to see her and he would feel cornered and desperate. Mac needed her help but she couldn’t make herself move. She heard a gasp of pain - she couldn’t tell who it had come from – and gritted her teeth. “We can do this,” Sera whispered. “You’re not a scared little girl hiding in her closet, you can do this.” 

“I can.” Riley stepped forwards. “I will.” 

She ran out of the spare room and was faced with Archer without his hood for the first time. He looked diminished, smaller and lesser as an ordinary man and not a nemesis shrouded in black. He was average, average height, average build, with the look of someone who lifts weights to bulk up. His hair was brownish and his eyes were blueish and he looked like someone she would pass on the street without noticing. On any other day she wouldn’t have been scared of him or of what he was capable of but on any other day she hadn’t been overpowered and locked away by him. On any other day he wouldn’t have had a knife to Mac’s throat.

“Riley!” Archer called in dismay. He was bleeding from cuts on his lip and by his hairline and his eyes were narrowed and bloodshot with rage. “No, this isn’t right. It isn’t time. You weren’t supposed to see me like this!” Mac was in front of Archer, with one of Archer’s hands curled into a fist in his hair to pull his chin up and expose his neck. Archer’s other hand held a knife that he had pressed against Mac’s jugular with a furious, unsteady grip. Vienne flapped and hovered in the air, wanting to swoop down at Archer’s daemon but she was afraid of provoking him or jarring his arm. 

“Ri?” Mac breathed, pulling against Archer’s grip. 

Shut up!” Archer roared at Mac, tightening his grip so that Mac hissed in pain. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not supposed to be like this, you’ve ruined everything!” 

“Stop!” Riley called at the same time as a voice with a Texan twang floated up the stairs. 

“You might want to rethink what you’re doing there, Skippy.” 

Jack and Desi edge slowly towards the standoff, guns drawn and pointed at the centre of Archer’s forehead. Their daemons were one step behind them, teeth bared in silent growls and hackles raised. 

“No. No, no, no!” Archer raved. “This is wrong, it’s all going wrong! I don’t want this!” His shaking hand spasmed and a thin red mark appeared where the blade of his knife cut into Mac’s skin. 

“Wait, please.” Riley help up her hands, “Nothing’s ruined. Think about it, me and you, we’re hackers, right?” she stepped forwards, holding Archer’s gaze so he kept his eyes on her, “And hackers adapt to change, we overcome obstacles, it’s what we do.” 

“We do?” The little boy Riley knew lived deep inside Archer was in his voice, desperate for reassurance and for someone to make it all better. 

“Of course.” Riley moved forwards again. If she could reach Archer, keep him talking…“The first time you tried to hack into somewhere it didn’t go exactly as you planned did it? So you adapted what you were doing and you learned.” Riley noticed that her outstretched hands weren’t shaking. 

“Yeah.” 

Riley took another step, “And you got better?” 

Archer nodded. “I did.” 

“So you can adapt and overcome like that now.” 

“This is not the same.” Archer pressed up with his knife, Mac arched onto his toes to get away from it. It wasn’t often that Mac was still. He waved his arms around when explaining science facts, he twisted paperclips and made sculptures from unused cutlery. Mac was all about motion, his intent was always reaching forward for why and how and what else and Riley could see he was fighting to stay as still as he could beneath Archer’s blade; Mac wanted to take Archer down and get to Riley but he understood it was best for him to let her lead. “They’re in my house, they’ve seen me,” Archer said, “They want to take you away.” 

“You want us to be friends don’t you?” Riley took another step. “Well, these are my other friends.” 

Archer shook his head. “We don’t need them.” 

“That doesn’t mean I want them to get hurt. And I don’t want you to get into trouble.” Riley was close enough to see the pulse throbbing in Mac’s throat. She made eye contact with him trying to tell him to trust her. 

Archer stuck out his jaw. “How do I know that’s true?” 

“You have control,” Riley said. “Ask them to put down their guns and they will,” she nodded at Jack and Desi. 

“Ri,” Desi said in an undertone. 

“Go on,” Riley insisted, “ask them.” 

“Put your guns down,” Archer commanded. 

Riley looked over at Jack and Desi, widening her eyes, _please_. Jack clenched his jaw then he and Desi both reluctantly lowered their weapons. 

“See?” Riley said. 

Archer stared at Jack and Desi and then back at Riley, his chest rose and fell with frantic breaths. 

“You have control,” Riley said, “So what do you want? Tell me?” Riley stepped closer, she was almost there. 

“I want...” Archer loosened his grip on Mac, “I want you to…” he relaxed his arm, lowering his knife slightly. 

Riley punched him in the face as hard as she could. 

Mac ducked out of the grip that had been holding him as it loosened, grabbing Archer’s arm as he twisted down away and threw him to the floor. 

Archer roared and bucked but Mac’s hold was determined and couldn’t be moved. Desi was at the top of the stairs jamming a knee into Archer’s back to keep him where he was while her daemon pinned the stag beetle daemon down with a large paw. Riley staggered backwards and then Jack was at her side, holding her up and leading her away from Archer’s yells and curses. 

“I’ve got you,” Jack rumbled in Riley’s ear, his arms around her, real, solid and safe. Riley sagged into his embrace. “You’re okay, baby, everything is okay now.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - I believe in peace, bitch - comes from the song Waitress by Tori Amos. Anyone who has seen Good Omens might recognise the line as what Adam’s friend Pepper says to War. Neil Gaiman, who co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchet, is friends with Tori Amos and he put the line in as a reference to her song. It feels like a Riley kind of thing to say.


	12. It’s full of flowers and heart shaped boxes, and things we're all too young to know

Mac tilted his head to the side so the nurse could examine the cut on his neck. Desi had shooed him into the examination room when they’d arrived at Medical and Mac had decided that complying would be quicker and easier than arguing. 

“It’s shallow,” the nurse said as she dabbed at Mac’s throat, “a scratch really, it will be fine in a day or two. Just try to keep it clean.” 

Mac sat as still as he could while the nurse worked wondering if he should just accept the inevitable and start using antiseptic as an aftershave since that was all he ever seemed to smell of. After he, Desi and Jack had secured Archer they’d brought Riley to the Phoenix medical wing to make sure she was okay. Jack - everyone really - had insisted that a doctor looked at Riley and she’d agreed, nodding in a way that could only be described as meek and that wasn’t a word Mac ever expected to use to describe her. 

Riley was okay. She was tired and worn and had a dark burst of bruised skin covering her jaw that made Mac want to break something but she was okay. Since they’d left Archer’s house Mac had felt like he was moving through the world in a giddy bubble. Everything was bright inside his bubble and the air was as thick as syrup so moving felt like wading in thigh deep water. Something like anticipation tingled under his skin making him want to fidget. He felt like he was waiting for something but he didn’t know what he needed or how he’d know when he’d found it. He’d had wanted to bring Riley home, he’d hoped they would be able to get her back to their family but hadn’t been sure that he would be able to make that happen. Now she was really with them everything around Mac had taken on a surreal quality, like he still wasn’t convinced what had happened was true. The first days after he’d arrived home from Afghanistan had been the same. He’d thought about what it would be like to be home for so long, had imagined what he’d do so often, that it had been hard to believe he was actually there. He’d find himself wandering aimlessly through his house, randomly picking up things and putting them back down again like he was trying to convince himself that he was actually home, that his surroundings were real and solid and weren’t going to vanish when he looked away. 

Riley was in the next room from him and as irrational as it was Mac needed to check that she was still there and hadn’t disappeared. 

“Are we done?” Mac asked the nurse as politely as he could. 

“Yes.” The nurse pulled off her gloves and dropped them into a bin. “You can go. Make sure you get some sleep, you look-” the nurse nodded her head from side to side as she thought of a kind way to describe Mac’s appearance, “you look like you need to rest.” 

“I will, thank you.” Mac said. Vienne settled herself on Mac’s shoulder as he left the room. When they stepped into the corridor outside their room they found James waiting for them. 

“Dad?” 

“Son, are you okay?” James was sat on one of the chairs that lined the wall of the waiting area of the medical bay, he pushed himself to his feet when he saw Mac with Xarina, his daemon, staying sat on the seat next to his. 

“This?” Mac waved a finger at his neck, “It’s just a scratch.” 

“Good,” James’ eyes flickered to the mark on Mac’s throat. “That’s good.” 

“I’m okay.” 

“That’s good,” James repeated. If he wanted to explain a complicated concept or a scientific fact James could be articulate and confident. Mac had seen his father in the field and knew he was a force to be reckoned with when he was in his element. When James was trying to talk about his feelings however...he was as clumsy and unsure as Mac had been the first time he’d asked Penny Parker to go to a dance with him. James didn’t wring his hands or shuffle his feet but he looked like he wanted to, or like that was happening internally somehow. If it was possible for someone’s organs to cringe then that’s what was happening to James’ innards right then. Mac fleetingly wondered how his parents had ever got together, his mom must have been the one who asked James out for coffee the first time, and she had to have done all the emotional heavy lifting in their relationship. Somewhere deep inside, somewhere that felt far away but close enough to still count, Mac felt a prickle of sympathy for his dad. 

“The doctor said that Riley is okay,” James said. “I’ve arranged to have this ‘Archer’ assessed and whatever happens he’ll be locked away where he can’t hurt anyone again.” 

“Good.” Mac wanted the man who’d taken Riley as far away from her as it was possible for him to go. 

“I’m thinking we can get him to agree to a guilty plea so that there won’t have to be a trial and Riley won’t have to face him again,” James added. 

Mac nodded. “That would be best.” 

“You know, son – ah -” James stuttered, “it wasn’t supposed to be a lesson.” 

Mac blinked in confusion. “What wasn’t?” 

“The raid on the dry cleaners, I wasn’t trying to teach you anything or make a point. I thought that bringing in the rest of that gang, finishing what you started, would be helpful to you.” 

“Oh that,” Mac said, with everything that had happened the raid with the tac team had been pushed to the back of his mind. He regretted his outburst on reflection, he hadn’t been feeling or acting rationally. “Yeah, I was kind of um, I wasn’t at my best.” 

“I knew that you would be struggling with your friend being missing and I wanted to help you,” James said, “but I’m not good at that kind of thing. Building and strategizing I can do, talking and relating…” James gave a helpless shrug. 

Silence followed. A thousand unspoken words of truth existing between father and son with neither of them knowing how to voice them. There should be a formula, Mac thought. In all the years scientists have devoted to uncovering the building blocks of the universe someone should have taken the time to create a formula for how to manage talking with the people in your life, especially for when communication was a tangled mess of the past, honesty, uncertainty, love, hurt and hope. There was a beautiful simplicity to the equation E=mc2. It was poetic in the way it refined universally vast complexity down to a flow of text. Surely a way could be found to reduce trust and understanding to their component parts. There had to be a few physicists at CERN who had room in their schedule to work on that. 

“So, um,” James said with uncharacteristic uncertainty, his flash of vulnerability was minute but Mac saw it, “will I see you for lunch on Saturday?” 

An equation would help so much. Mac and his father could scribble the formula down on a napkin and have it on the table in front of them as a guide whenever they met. "Love = effort + contrition + forgiveness" . Or maybe love wasn’t the end goal, maybe love was already there and the result Mac was seeking was a connection, so maybe what they needed something like: "a healthy relationship = love + effort + willingness + truth + acceptance + egg salad sandwiches". Mac didn’t know. He wished he did. 

“Saturday?” Mac said. As he paused Vienne flew from his shoulder to land on the seat next to Xarina. She bustled, a belligerent moment of fluffed black feathers, then looked towards James’ daemon and nodded. “The same time as usual?” Mac asked. 

“Same time, same place.” James rocked back on his heels, smiling. “I’ll see you then.” 

  


Jack was snoring and it was the best sound in the world. 

One of the best. 

Another sounds that would have been given top billing in the list of things Riley wanted to hear right then was her mom saying, ‘there you are, baby’ and the sound of her friend’s collective laughter alongside the crackle of the fire pit on Mac and Bozer’s deck. And the hiss of an opening beer bottle and the ding of the doorbell as the Thai delivery that they’d ordered arrived. 

Riley had been looked at and prodded by doctors and given painkillers and an IV line to rehydrate her. She was curled on her side with Sera on her chest watching clouds move through the sky outside her window. She swore she would never take sunlight for granted again but even as she promised herself that she knew it wasn’t true. Life would move forward and she would fall back to her normal routine. Time would pass and maybe the memories of craving the sight of open spaces would fade but for the time being she was going to drink them in. 

“Ri?” 

Riley looked over her shoulder and saw Mac stood in the doorway of her room. 

“Can I come in?” he asked. 

“Of course,” Riley told him, “as long as you don’t mind some loud noises,” she pointed at where Jack was sleeping, “it sounds like there’s a rusty tractor fighting an angry hippo in here.” 

Riley peered at Mac as he stepped into the room, “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Mac answered, “How are you feeling?” 

“I’m fine too," Riley sighed, reconsidering, “or if I’m not fine then at least I’m not fine here, which is way better than being not fine where I was before; so I’m pretty okay.” 

Mac nodded and Riley knew he’d understood which was impressive since she was sure that what she’d just said had made no sense. 

Jack gave a snort, shifting in his chair, his head lolling to the side. Beside his seat, lying sprawled on the floor Larkin kicked out her back legs and huffed in her sleep. 

Mac and Riley shared an affectionate look. 

“I don’t think he’s slept much recently,” Mac said. He picked up a blanket from a shelf and carefully spread it over Jack. Jack’s eyes flickered under his closed lids then stilled. “This nap is long overdue. He came back here as soon as he heard what had happened to you, I don’t think he’s really stopped moving since Matty called him.” 

Riley looked over at the exhausted, blanket covered shape of Jack next to her. “I knew he’d come,” she said, “It was one of the things that kept me going.” She’d known that Jack and her friends were coming for her, just like she would have gone if it had been any of them who needed her. Knowing that had helped her feel less alone, it had been something to cling to and helped drive her forward. “You got my message then?” 

“We did. I don’t think Jack will ever get over Sparky suddenly bursting to life from nowhere. That’s literally one of his nightmares.” 

“I’ll apologise to him later. It wasn’t my best work or my subtlest hack but it got the job done.” 

“It did that. It actually kind of saved the day.” 

“It did?” Riley grinned, “Are you telling me that the day wasn’t saved by you, a paperclip and some rock salt.” 

“Not this time.” Mac grinned back, “It was you.” 

“Oh,” Riley shuffled to get more comfortable against her pillows, “yay me then.” 

Mac moved closer to the bed, standing opposite where Jack was sat. Riley shifted over to make room for him to sit down on the mattress but he stayed standing. He pursed his lips and looked away from her and Riley was about to ask him what was wrong when he spoke. 

“Oversight said he’s going to make sure that the person who took you is locked up far away from us, you won’t have to worry about seeing him again. It’s over.” 

“Right.” It was over. Riley let out a deep breath. It was over. That meant the weight of frustration and fear she could still feel pressing down on her chest should be gone. The weight should be gone but there was still a heaviness compressing her lungs. Maybe it would take a little time to lift. Maybe she would feel it ease after she’d rested. 

“I’ve read the file that Matty put together about ‘Archer’. I thought you might want to know his real name.” 

“I do,” Riley answered. ‘Archer’ was the name her captor had given himself and she didn’t want to think of him in that way. She wanted the truth, to pull his mask away and be able to see him as he really was, not as someone hidden behind falsehoods and a disguise like a cartoon villain. There was power in naming the monster that stalked you and Riley wanted to take her power back. 

“His name is Cade Trench,” Mac said. "He’s twenty nine years old and he works as an insurance broker. We’ve found that he spends most of his time either teaching himself how to hack or in chatrooms on the dark web exaggerating his skills and complaining about the women who were too smart to date him, which was all of them apparently.” 

“Cade Trench?” Riley and her daemon exchanged a disgusted look, “That’s what he’s called?” 

Mac nodded. “He doesn’t have a middle name.” 

“I had him down as a Chad or a Chet but Cade isn’t too far off.” Riley pulled a face, “And _Trench_?”

“Yep.” Mac popped the P on the end of the word. “It’s right up there with Ernie Bung in the unfortunate name stakes. 

“Cade Trench?” Riley said again. “I think if I’d been called that I might have ended up being bitter, entitled and pathetic too.” That was how she would think of him from now on. Not as Archer, the featureless figure with the key to her cell but as Cade Trench, a twisted little man with an empty life and an empty heart. 

“Riles?” Mac’s gaze dropped to his twitching hands and Vienne jumped onto the bed and looked over at Sera from the side of one eye. “I’m sorry. I should have walked you to your door, or convinced you to come back to the house with me that night.” 

“What? No!” Riley snapped sharply, she flinched and looked over at Jack to check that she hadn’t woken him then carried on in a voice that was softer but no less vehement. “Nothing that happened was your fault.” 

“But,” Mac insisted, “I could have-” 

“He was organised and ruthless,” Riley said, “he brought a stun gun with him when he took me, what makes you think you could have done anything to stop him?” Sera scurried over to Vienne and butted her with his head, making her stagger back before he pressed against her. “If you had been with me you would have probably been hurt, or worse. Mr Trench-Face was the asshole in this scenario, he’s the one who gets all the blame, no one else.” 

“I know but-”

“Sit down.” Riley pointed to the space on the mattress next to her. 

“You know, for infection control purposes I shouldn’t…”

“Sit down, MacGyver!” 

Mac sat. 

“Hey,” Riley said gently, tapping Mac on the chin so he looked at her. 

“I drove away,” Mac said. Riley could see regret darkening his eyes. “He was right there waiting for you and I drove away.”

“I don’t blame you and I don’t want you to blame yourself,” Riley said, “He doesn’t get to do this to us. He doesn’t get to affect how we feel or what we think. Don’t give him that power over you, that’s what he likes.” Riley tugged on the cuff of Mac’s sleeve. “And don’t forget, you’re the one that got me out of that room.” 

“I picked the lock, you got yourself out, and you got me away from him too.” 

“Let’s agree to call it a team effort.” Riley pulled Mac forward and into a hug, she closed her eyes as she felt his strong arms around her. She heard Jack hum in his sleep in what she hoped were pleasant dreams. Mac dragged in a stuttering breath, held it briefly, then let it out slowly, sagging further against Riley. Riley tightened her hold on Mac, pulling the heart she could feel beating inside his chest, the knowledge of Jack’s closeness and the reality of her family to her. She was home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title - It’s full of flowers and heart shaped boxes, and things we're all too young to know – is from the song The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel
> 
> I’ve borrowed the surname Trench from a character in the story May Malone by the wonderful David Almond.


	13. Then I open up and see, the person falling here is me, a different way to be

Mac looked into the dancing flames and wondered why he and his friends always gravitated to his fire pit. When a mission went well, when one went less well, when they were celebrating, commiserating or just spending time together his friends always ended up on his deck gathered around a fire. Fires meant warmth, light and safety, they had done from the very beginning of human existence. There could be an ancient memory buried deep within everyone that responded on an instinctive level to something that reminded them of a circle of flames burning in a cave, that could have been why when the team got together they met on Mac’s deck. It could also have been because his house was the largest and he usually had a fridge full of beer. 

Whatever the reason the team were there again. The whole team and their daemons crowded on the deck with a fire and enough food to sink a ship. Well, not literally, Mac thought, but there was certainly enough food to get caught in the propellers of a dingy and stall it’s engine. 

“Here.” Desi passed Mac a cold beer. 

“Thank you.” Mac lifted his drink in a toast to her and took a sip. Ash had disappeared over the deck’s railings to explore the undergrowth surrounding the house. Mac was pleased that Desi and her daemon felt comfortable enough around the Phoenix team and in his home to be open about who they were. As Desi sat down next to Mac her daemon reappeared, managing to look content and predatory at the same time, and flopped down next to Desi with the fire reflecting in his eyes. 

Mac had been to lunch with James. It had been fine. They still hadn’t identified the formula that would help them navigate their relationship but they were working on it. It took Einstein almost ten years to perfect his Theory of Relativity so Mac and his father weren’t going to solve their communication difficulties overnight, although hopefully it would take them less than a decade to do it. 

Jack was sat on Mac’s other side, he leaned back and stretched his legs out, a satisfied smile on his face. His daemon was padding her way around the deck, sniffing at the plates of food she passed and pausing to nuzzle and chat with Vienne and the other daemons. 

“You're looking very relaxed there, Dalton,” Matty called. 

“I’m feeling very relaxed, Mathilda, thank you very much for noticing,” Jack replied, “I’m as happy as a pig in something unmentionable.” He raised one foot to rest it on his opposite knee. “I haven’t felt like this for a long time, I’m soaking it in.” 

“Are you catching up with the LA lifestyle?” Mac asked him. “Bright lights, warm weather, smog.” 

“Something like that. I’ve missed it, you know, and this.” Jack gestured around him with his bottle, “I’m trying to get my fill of it while I can.” 

Mac sat forward. “While you can?” 

“I wasn’t going to say anything not yet,” Jack looked over at the house and into the kitchen to where Riley was helping Bozer, “but the job’s not done. Kovacs is still out there. When I know that everything is okay here I’ll have to re-join my team.” 

It had been strange to have Jack and Desi together but it had been good. They’d made a mismatched but complimentary alliance. It had been good to have Jack back on the team as well, like old times, but if Mac had thought about it he would have known that returning to the hunt for Tiberius Kovcas would be the decision that Jack would make. He would never leave a man behind and he would never leave a job half done, not when there were people relying on him. He was with them for now and Mac decided that he would enjoy every second of them all being together. 

Jack took a bite from the pile of food on his plate. “This is good,” he said, “it could use a little hot sauce though.” he raised his voice to call through to Riley and Bozer in the kitchen. “Bring some hot sauce through will you?” 

“Didn’t you swear off that stuff forever after last time?” Mac asked. 

“As James Bond once said,” Jack raised one eyebrow in an expression he thought was suave and 007-ish, “never say never.” 

“Never Say Never Again is considered an unofficial Bond movie because it wasn’t made by the same production team as the others,” Bozer said as he climbed the steps to the deck and handed Jack a bottle of sauce, “it doesn’t use the Bond theme tune in it’s opening credits.” 

“Whatever, dude, as long as this stuff is shaken and not stirred it’s all right with me.” Jack poured a generous dollop of sauce onto his plate. 

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Riley asked. “Have you forgotten what happened before?” 

“It’s fine, I’ll be fine, stop being such worry warts,” Jack said. “Honestly, can’t a man enjoy a little fiery pep on his dinner without everyone getting all antsy? Last time wasn’t that bad.” 

The deck was filled with a mumbled chorus of ‘yes it was’. 

“What happened last time?” Desi asked. 

“I went a teeny tiny bit overboard with the hot sauce for a dare and suffered for it the next day. I don’t want to go into details, not when there are ladies present.” 

“I don’t think you need to worry about our delicate sensibilities, Jack,” Riley said, pointing between herself, Matty, Desi and Leanna. 

“Who said I was talking about you?” 

Mac and Bozer shared a look. 

The fire burned, just as fires have done for millennia. The flames kept the people around it warm and safe while they kept each other warm and safe, a family gathered around their hearth. 

  


It ended with a girl on a swing. 

Riley agreed to see her dad at the park where they’d met all those months ago but instead of going to sit on a picnic bench Riley sat on one of the swings in the children’s play area. The sky was huge above her and the sun was warm on her skin so why not? 

“Hey, kiddo.” Elwood looked at Riley for a second, amused, then shrugged his shoulders and sat on the swing next to hers. “How are you?” he asked, “I heard you been having an interesting time.” 

While her abduction hadn’t been a Phoenix mission it had been dealt with by the foundation and as such it’s details were classified so Riley hadn’t told her mom and dad the full story. Besides, Riley hadn’t wanted to give either of her parents too much information about what had happened, she’d always wanted to keep the hacker side of her life from them as much as she could. Especially her dad, she still didn’t feel secure enough about their relationship to let him that far into her life. 

“It was difficult but I’m fine. It all ended up being okay.” 

“All’s well that ends well?” 

“Something like that.” The situation had ended well, the good guys had won, but that didn’t mean that Riley could forget everything that had come before.

After she’d left medical Riley had driven across town to sit in her car and watch a package being delivered to a building next to a scorch marked road. The homeless lady living in the decaying building had kicked the parcel suspiciously while her heron daemon swooped overhead. After she’d scowled and looked around her the homeless lady opened the box and pulled out a thick, warm coat and packets of MRE survival food. The lady laughed and lifted a packet of beef goulash in a salute. 

“Thanks, Tex," Riley saw her say. 

Then the Phoenix technicians had finally identified the body from the car. Rae O’Brien had been living on the streets since her parents passed away and since she had no living relatives Matty arranged for her to be buried in a cemetery at the edge of the city. Riley had attended the funeral and laid a wreath of mixed zinnias on the grave.

“So how are you?” Riley asked Elwood. Sera clambered out of Riley’s pocket onto her thigh to sniff at Elwood’s stoat daemon. 

“I’m okay. I’m working, going to meetings, watching reruns of 80’s sitcoms on TV, the usual.” 

“You’re still going to meetings?”

“A couple of times a week.” Elwood nodded. “The coffee’s bad but the donuts are okay.” 

What Riley wanted to ask was _‘has it worked, are you better?_ ’ Was her dad better than he had been? Had he changed, truly changed, because when he’d been bad things had been very bad indeed. “Are they helping?” she asked instead. 

“I think they are. I haven’t had a drink, I’m holding down a job and I’m with my beautiful daughter on a bright, sunny day so I’d say everything’s good.” 

“Things sound good,” Riley said, pushing back with her feet to swing herself backwards and forwards. 

“They are and I’m grateful for that. I’m learning it’s all about the small things, you know? You don’t need a big win or an easy score to be happy.” Elwood copied Riley, moving himself back and forth in time with his daughter. “It’s better to get pleasure from the little things, they’re easier to find and they don’t cost as much – and I’m not talking about spending money. I mean have you seen that sky?” Leaning back, Elwood gazed upwards. “It’s beautiful isn’t it? And it’s right there, all the time, all you need to do is look up.” 

“You’re right.” Riley looked, she still did, every day. The blue above her, the wind in her hair and the comfort of her family were helping ease the heaviness she’d still felt even after learning that everything she’d been through was over. 

“It’s definitely the little things in life that make it worthwhile,“ Elwood said, “Like clouds, reruns of The Golden Girls and a good knock-knock joke. Do you want to hear my new one?” 

“Do I really have a choice?” 

“Of course you do, but I’d suggest that you say yes – you’ll love it.” 

Riley rolled her eyes and lifted her feet off the floor, rhythmically bending and stretching her legs to make her swing climb higher. 

“Go on then, tell me it.” 

“Knock knock.” Elwood grinned. 

“Who’s there?” 

“Interrupting cow.” 

“Interrupting cow wh-”

“Moo!” Elwood shouted before Riley could finish her sentence. 

Riley couldn’t help herself, she laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t know that Never Say Never Again wasn’t an official Bond film until I wrote this chapter. It wasn’t made by Eon Productions, who’d done the other Bond films, so it didn’t have the bond theme or the thing with the gun barrel in the opening. The more you know…. 
> 
> In floriography, the language of flower, mixed zinnias mean thinking of you.
> 
> As a rule I don’t think Knock Knock jokes are funny but the interrupting cow one does make me laugh. It’s a lot of fun to tell, shouting ‘moo!’ at people when they aren’t expecting it is really satisfying 😃


End file.
